Newspaper report-How ‘Iron Lady’ Thatcher will be buried.

Baroness Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s longest serving prime minister and the only woman so far to hold the role will be given a ceremonial funeral with full military honours on Wednesday, April 17.

It is the same status as that accorded to the Queen Mother and Diana, Princess of Wales, although some Tories want a full state ceremony. The funeral ceremony will take place at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, following a procession from Westminster. Crowds are expected to line the streets between the Palace of Westminster where her coffin will be brought on the eve of the funeral to lie in a chapel and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The funeral will be the first ceremonial funeral for a former prime minister the Queen has ever attended. She attended Sir Winston Churchill’s state ceremony in 1965. She will be accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, and other heads of state and foreign dignitaries from around the world are expected to attend.

Lady Thatcher, 87,

died at The Ritz in central London on Monday morning after suffering a stroke. She had battled ill health for a number of years. Downing Street said the date of her funeral was agreed at a meeting attended by her family and officials from Buckingham Palace. Lady Thatcher will not have a state funeral but will be accorded the same status as Princess Diana and the Queen Mother.

A ceremonial funeral is one rung down from a state funeral, normally reserved for monarchs and requires the consent of the Queen. A Downing Street spokesman said the details had been agreed at a “co-ordination meeting” between the Thatcher family and Buckingham Palace yesterday morning. An undertaker’s van carrying a silver casket left the hotel early yesterday morning for an undisclosed location.

The day before the ceremony, Lady Thatcher’s coffin will be transferred to the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster. There will be a short service following its arrival before the coffin rests in the chapel overnight. On the day of the funeral, the coffin will travel by hearse from Westminster to a Royal Air Force chapel, where it will be transferred to a gun carriage drawn by the King’s Troop Royal Artillery.

From there, it will be taken in procession to St. Paul’s Cathedral along a route lined by servicemen and women from the army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. The coffin will be greeted at Sir Christopher Wren’s landmark domed cathedral by a guard of honor, with military personnel and veterans lining the steps. Inside will wait family and friends of Thatcher, as well as many of those who worked with her in government and elsewhere.

The funeral is being organized in line with the wishes of her family, Downing Street said. They include her twin children, Mark and Carol. The public will not be able to attend the funeral service itself but will be able to line the route of the procession.