After more than five hours of a solemn and emotional journey that included stops at Parliament Buildings and Heroes Square, and a service of thanksgiving at cricket’s Mecca, Kensington Oval, the Right Excellent Sir Garfield St Auburn Sobers was on Wednesday laid to his final resting place at Coral Ridge Memorial Gardens, in an area allocated for other icons and legends.

Under overcast skies and intermittent showers that seemed to suggest that even the heavens shed a tear, the state funeral procession of the boy who rose from humble beginnings in the village of Bayland to the pinnacle of the world’s sporting stage, started from Lyndhurst Funeral Home on Passage Road, and snaked its way through The City, watched by hundreds of residents and visitors lining the streets leading to the Oval.

Members of the Barbados Police Service and the Barbados Defence Force escort the gun carriage carrying the body of Sir Garfield Sobers into Coral Ridge Memorial Gardens. (Photo Credit: Shamar Blunt)