Paul Robson, Hawick funeral director. (Photo: BILL McBURNIE)
Lockdown easing from this week means that 50 people can now attend funeral services rather than just 20.
The restrictions had resulted in agonising decisions for grieving families – the Royal Family included.
But while acknowledging that dilemma, Paul Robson, company director with Robson’s Funeral Directors in Garfield Street, has seen positives emerge through lockdown.
Cavers Church outside Hawick.
In particular, the return of more traditional funeral rituals and the solemnity of people taking to the streets, while maintaining the required social distance, to bid emotional and heartfelt farewells.
Paul hopes that as the restrictions continue to be lifted some of the changes adopted through lockdown are retained.
Peter Noel Chubb was born on December 23, 1928, at East Knoyle, the elder of two brothers. He enlisted in the Coldstream Guards in 1946 and was based at Wellington barracks in London from where he performed guard duties at Buckingham palace and Windsor Castle. In 1948 he served in Palestine and Libya during the peace keeping mission there. In 1950 Peter returned to the UK as he had contracted polio in Tripoli and spent three months in hospital after which he was no longer able to continue as a drill instructor and was downgraded to office work at Pirbright. In 1951 Peter married Evelyn Coombes at Wilton Church and they lived in a flat in North Street, where both of their children were born before moving to Salisbury in 1954.