Wootton Bassett honours dead soldiers for the last time

The town of Wootton Bassett fell silent yesterday for what could be the final time as a fallen soldier was repatriated to the UK.

More than 1,000 people lined the Wiltshire town’s High Street to pay tribute to Lieutenant Daniel Clack, 24, of 1st Battalion The Rifles, who was killed in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, last week.

At the end of the month repatriations return to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire as RAF Lyneham closes.

Wootton Bassett’s place in the story of Britain’s operations in Afghanistan began only by chance in April 2007 when Brize Norton was closed for runway repairs. Instead, the returning C-17s brought the bodies back to Lyneham and the route to the pathology department in Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford led through Wootton Bassett.

ROD MINCHIN