THERE have been very few weeks this year when there have been no fatal casualties among our forces serving in Afghanistan.

Along the repatriation route from RAF Lyneham and Wootton Bassett to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, groups in various numbers have waited in all kinds of weather, and at times for very long periods, to pay their respects as the latest cortege passes by.

Their wish has been acknowledged up to now by the leading driver and its police escort slowing, but not stopping, on the journey.

This week, the cortege and its police escort, obviously under orders, passed at quite a fast speed, almost oblivious to those groups en route who had gathered to pay their last respects.

The casualty this time was a young member of the Parachute Regiment, a New Zealander, who had paid the supreme sacrifice after volunteering to serve in the British Army.

As an ex-regular soldier myself I was many years ago involved in military funerals, either as a bearer or part of the tribute firing squad, but this was in foreign lands where the only people able to pay their last respects were the funeral party itself.

In those days our casualties were not repatriated, but interred in military cemeteries such as Cheras, in Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia Can pressure be put on those who have ordered the change in procedure to revert to letting us be able to pay our last respects in a more dignified way than just watching a speeding cortege pass by?

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED