SIMPLE CEREMONY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 112, 9 February 1928, Page 11

SIMPLE CEREMONY

IN DRYBURGH ABBEY EARL HAIG’S BODY LAID TO REST BY Telegraph.—press association. Copyright. London February 7. Crowds in a rainstorm watched the entrainment of Earl Haig’s remains at Edinburgh for burial in Dryburgh Abbey, where the Haigs have been interred for a thousand years. It was arranged that poppies and ivy grown on the estate should be in readiness for the ceremony. Business was suspended in the adjoining four counties to enable the public to join in the final tribute.—A.P.A. and "Sun.” Rugby, February 7. The remains of the late Earl Haig were laid to rest in the ancestral vault at Dryburgh Abbey this afternoon, with simple ceremony. Instead of the Great War leaders who were pall-bearers at the funeral ceremony in Westminster Abbey, the Field-Marshal’s .ast escort consisted of eight of his employees—the gamekeeper, butler, gardeners, and grooms. The only splash of colour was provided by the uniforms of a few representatives ■of the Services. Thousands of people of the countryside lined the route.—British Official Wireless. THE ROUTE TO THE ABBEY (Rec. February 8, 8.40 p.m.) London, February 7. Thousands stood bare-headed reverently lining the route as Earl Haig’s coffin, covered with a Union Jack and preceded by a slow-pacing Border detachment of the British Legion, wearing poppies, and accompanied by eight Bemersyde Estate hands, was conveyed along the five miles of hilly lanes in a farm cart drawn by two draught horses, driven tandem. Ahead of it was a local tenant farmer’s cart laden with wreaths, while Lady Haig, accompanied by relatives, followed the coffin. The last half-mile was accomplishel afoot. The simplest ceremony marked the laying of the great Field Marshal to rest in the tomb of his fathers. /After the interment the choir chanted “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” the pipes played the Requiem, and the notes of a bugle rang out sounding the reveille.— A.P.A. and “Sun.” THE LEGION’S WORK LETTER FROM LADY HAIG (Rec. February 8, 8.40 p.m.) London, February 7. “Carry on the legion’s work,” says Lady Haig in a letter of thanks for world-wide expressions of sympathy. “Hold fast to the objectives embodied in the legion’s charter. The legion’s work has only been begun. My husband lived and died by its ideals.”—A.P.A. and “Sun.”