It was Friday, January 29, 1965, the eve of Sir Winston Churchill's State funeral at St Paul's Cathedral in London.

Michael Jopling, MP for Westmorland, lauded the great wartime leader in the Gazette's pages, saying: "He has been the greatest man of our generation and time will place him among the giants of history."

As Churchill's coffin lay in state at Westminster Hall, delegates from the South Westmorland branch of the NFU happened to be in London and they joined the 321,000 mourners who filed past the catafalque in silence.

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Cumbria county councillor Roger Bingham, then a 21-year-old Cambridge University postgraduate, also paid his respects. He remembers that the medieval hall closed for an hour each day for its vast blue carpet to be swept and for floral wreaths from Churchill's widow, Lady Clementine, and the Queen to be refreshed.

The State funeral took place on Saturday, January 30, and the next day churchgoers attended memorial services across Westmorland. At St Lawrence's Church, Appleby, there was a muffled peal of bells and the Gazette reported that the preacher, the Rev R B Bradford, said it was "an irony that Churchill, who gave people new courage and hope and led the nation through the dark days of war to triumph, was called to his task at an age when most people begin to draw their pensions".

Flags flew at half mast; Sedbergh School boys rang a muffled peal of bells; and Preston Patrick's vicar Dr W J Smart - formerly of Ohio, USA - received a telegram from his one-time parishioners offering "heart-felt sympathy in the loss of a great leader and statesman".

In its editorial comment of January 29, 1965, the Gazette recalled Churchill's only public appearance in Westmorland, at the turn of the century, when he spoke at Levens Hall as a young MP. One observer was heard to exclaim: "There goes a future Prime Minister of Britain."

The Gazette also revealed: "It is said that during the war, when censorship permitted little more than rumours, he also visited Lowther Park where, in addition to tank training, a very great deal of secret experimental work was done with these machines of war." In the sky over the northern fells, "gyrating light of unusual brilliance like some great aurora borealis in the dismal blackout" could be seen, as new technology was secretly tested.

The Gazette continued: "But, as with every enterprise of war, the bulldog of Britain must needs know all that was afoot and, it is said, to Lowther he came accompanied by the King and high advisers."