OUR November picture choice takes us back to Waddesdon Manor and a moving portrait by Lesley Tilson featured in our calendar feature for that month.
But while the silhouettes formed part of the Remembrance Day commemorations, staged each year to provide an opportunity to remember those who died in battle, the figures had a particular resonance in a year which saw the death of so many famous UK faces, most notably the Queen.
Hundreds of thousands turned out to pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, with a 10-day mourning period during which around a quarter of a million people queued to file past the Queen’s coffin at Westminster Hall the previous month.
But the intense public mourning which marked the Queen’s death was only the most memorable outpouring of grief in a year which also saw the passing of hundreds of iconic figures from actors and musicians to politicians and pop stars.
From Robbie Coltrane, Olivia Newton-John and Angela Lansbury to Sidney Poitier, Meat Loaf, Pele and Shane Warne, the list extended to stars of the small screen like June Brown and Bill Treacher from EastEnders, Dennis Waterman, Bamber Gascoigne and Bernard Cribbins.
The political world lost Mikhail Gorbachev and Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe, while the year came to a close with the death of the former pope, Benedict XVI.
