A full military rehearsal for Baroness Thatcher’s funeral procession has taken place in the early hours of this morning. Timed to last 19 minutes, it will involve more than 700 serving Armed Forces personnel and see Lady Thatcher’s coffin carried on a horse-drawn gun carriage from St Clement Danes, the church of the Royal Air Force, down the Strand on Wednesday morning. Led by the Band of the Royal Marines, the solemn procession will then slowly travel along Fleet Street towards St Paul’s where around 2,000 mourners are expected to attend the service. Major Andrew Chatburn, the man in charge of choreographing the parade, said the rehearsal “went very well” and claimed it was “vitally important” to stage a trial of the event. He said the atmosphere of the thousands of people expected to line the streets could obviously not be replicated, but added those involved, including the horses, were used to big occasions with large crowds. “We’ll have a debriefing and we’ll take the points from that. We’ll address whatever we have to address. If it’s additional rehearsals in barracks we’ll conduct those rehearsals and we’ll get it right on the day,” he added.