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Soldiers' farewell: Comrades carrying the coffin of Trooper Andrew Ovington

Wednesday 07 February 1996 20:02 EST
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Soldiers' farewell: Comrades carrying the coffin of Trooper Andrew Ovington, 25, through the snow into St Mary the Virgin church in Easington in Co Durham yesterday. Trooper Ovington was one of the three soldiers killed last week when their armoured vehicle hit a mine during peacekeeping duties in Bosnia.

The funeral of Trooper John Kelly, 21, who was also killed in the incident on 28 January, was 10 miles away yesterday in the Independent Methodist Church at Silksworth, Tyne and Wear.

In Easington, a Light Dragoons regimental bearer party carried the coffin into the church where he and his widow Tracy were married just three years ago, a few months before he joined the Army. Tracy, Andrew's parents, Joan and Tom, brothers Stephen, Graham and Tony, and his sister, Janet, led 150 mourners as they slowly followed the bearer party to the hilltop church.

After the service the cortege moved on to Easington Colliery cemetery where a Royal Scots Dragoon Guard piper played a lament and there was a final salute from a firing party.

At Silksworth, about 300 mourners of Trooper Kelly were led by his father, Dennis, stepmother Amanda, mother Ann and stepfather Colin Swain, to the church and a hall where the service was relayed. The service was followed by cremation at Sunderland.

Photograph: Raoul Dixon

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