A FORMER Grainville student who helped carry Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin at the state funeral has been recognised in a Royal honours list.
Fletcher Cox, who at the age of 19 was part of a group from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards who carried the lead-lined coffin in September, has now received a silver Royal Victorian medal.
The accolade came as part of the Demise Honours list – a rare set of honours awarded by King Charles III ahead of his Coronation for those who held important roles during the preparations for the funeral of Her Majesty and the ceremony itself.
Mr Cox is also a previous recipient of the Lieutenant-Governor’s Award, which is the highest accolade a cadet can achieve.
The group of Grenadier Guards was not only responsible for conveying the Queen’s coffin to the lying-in-state in Westminster Hall, but also for carrying it into Westminster Abbey for the State Funeral service and for transferring it onto the gun carriage to start the long procession to Wellington Arch. Later, the group took Her Majesty into St George’s Chapel in Windsor.
Mr Cox was once a cadet in the Grainville detachment of the Army Cadet Force. The school is the only non-fee-paying secondary in the Island to have its own section in the Jersey Militia Army Cadet Force, with Mr Cox becoming a senior cadet officer by the time he was in Year 11. Aged 16, he left the Island to undertake military training in the UK. He is now part of the Queen’s Company Guardsmen, which is an elite British Army infantry unit famed for their bearskin hats and red tunics. They are the senior Guards regiment, with members being fully trained combat soldiers.