As the heavens opened and the hailstones fell, Sir Roger Moore, Dame Judi Dench and Lord Attenborough were among those who took cover inside St Mary the Virgin church in Denham, Buckinghamshire. Actresses Helen Mirren and Nanette Newman also attended

"Theatrical to the last," remarked director and family friend Marcus Dillistone as he surveyed the inclement scene.

Not everyone was so stoic, however. "Does anyone know the way in?" mumbled a bedraggled Stephen Fry as he picked his way through the massed ranks of photographers and well-wishers assembled outside.

Few of the celebrities dallied in the downpour, though actor Robert Powell and cinematographer Jack Cardiff genially posed for snaps under their respective umbrellas.

So did the prime minister's wife Cherie Blair, to some locals' audible displeasure.

Thankfully the rain had abated by the time Sir John's coffin arrived in a horse-drawn Victorian-style hearse decked with flowers.

Composure

With grandson Crispian as one of his pallbearers (pictured above), the actor knight made his final journey into the church, followed by his children, Juliet, Hayley and Jonathan, and the rest of the family.

The mood was sombre, though thanks to the choice of opening music - You Make Me Feel So Young by Frank Sinatra - hardly funereal.

Loudspeakers broadcast the service to the onlookers outside, though a lucky few were permitted to watch the proceedings from the portico.

And some were seen to dab their eyes as Hayley fought to maintain her composure while reading What Shall We Do Tomorrow? - a poem written by her mother, Lady Mills, who was unable to attend the service due to poor health.

Parish rector Rev Adrian Hirst paid tribute to Sir John's work "which touched the lives of all of us here and the lives of millions of others who saw him over the years in theatre and in films".

Lord Attenborough was visibly moved during a heartfelt oration in which he spoke warmly, if sometimes inaudibly, about his friend and colleague "Johnny".

"We shall miss him desperately," said the 81-year-old director. "But we shall have him with us always in the deep love and unmatched joy that he has bequeathed to all of us."

With Stephen Fry reading from Ecclesiastes and Juliet Mills reading from Shakespeare, the service ran like clockwork - though not everything went exactly according to plan.

Applause

Crispian Mills, former lead singer of Britpop band Kula Shaker, had chosen to sing Forever the Best of Friends, a song from the musical Great Expectations that Sir John used to sing to his grandchildren.

Unfortunately he was not on the best of terms with his ukulele, forcing him to start again after a fumbled first verse.

But he still received a round of applause in a service filled with happy memories for Mills' army of fans.

And nowhere more so than in the reading of John Pudney's Do Not Despair for Johnny-head-in-air - the poem he memorably recites in 1945 wartime drama, The Way to the Stars.

Afterwards Sir Roger Moore said he thought the funeral service was beautiful.

"How can you do justice to a life of 97 years? He was a great man," he said.

"It was a lovely ceremony," said actress Anita Harris as she stepped gingerly through the puddles afterwards.

A fitting summation of a day where the great British weather paid its own special tribute to one of Britain's acting greats.

A memorial service will be held on 30 June at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

last will

Date: 24th July 2005

He was one of Britain's most successful screen actors, starring in more than 100 films in an enviable 70-year career. But when Sir John Mills died in April at the age of 97, he left an estate worth less than £400,000, it was revealed yesterday..