NELSON, Wellington, Churchill – and now Thatcher.

The choice of Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece on Ludgate Hill, where the nation's historic heroes have all had their funerals, was nothing if not a statement that the Iron Lady was forged in the heat of battle.

While, officially, this was not a state funeral, all the pomp and ceremony meant it certainly felt like one.

Seated in the gallery of the south transept it was possible, before the service proper began, to engage in the journalist's favourite pastime – people watching.

While the late prime minister was renowned for her divisive politics, for a brief time in St Paul's her death brought political foes together.

Kisses were exchanged – on both cheeks – as political leaders, past and present, and their wives, greeted each other like old friends.

Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg were engaged in a lengthy and chummy conversation. Was this the beginning of a beautiful relationship?

Further back, Alex Salmond was laughing and chatting in a lively manner with Boris Johnson; some might have had sympathy for the woman seated between them as the two jolly fellows exchanged pleasantries.

In another section were some of Lady Thatcher's former team – Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, Norman Tebbit and even Michael Heseltine; a line-up not seen since the glory days of Spitting Image.

Slowly, as 11am neared the cascading organ music became a low hum, the chatter hushed and all that could be heard under the cathedral's great dome was the sound of a muffled bell and the occasional echo of a cough.

The coffin, draped in a Union flag, was borne slowly by servicemen from units associated with the Falklands War through the nave to rest on a bier under the great cupola.

For some it might have been fitting that amid all the white marbled pilasters and gilt-topped columns, statues of some of the nation's greatest war heroes, including Nelson, looked on.

David Ison, the Dean of St Paul's, said Britain recalled with thanks Lady Thatcher's "leadership of this nation, her courage, her steadfastness and her resolve to accomplish what she believed to be right for the common good".

One poignant moment came when the late prime minister's granddaughter, Amanda, gave a reading from Ephesians, which mentioned putting on "the whole armour of God" to defeat the "wiles of the devil". Her reading also made mention of the "shield of faith", the "helmet of salvation" and the "sword of the Spirit", all militaristic references to suggest this was a funeral of a war leader.

As the music from the choir swelled, the occasion was, understandably, having an emotional effect on some in the congregation.

The eyes of George Osborne, for example, welled up and a tear trickled down his cheek; not something the Iron Lady might have approved of in the Iron Chancellor she would want him to be.

The only real laughter came in the Bishop of London Richard Chartres's address when he recalled how he was seated next to Lady Thatcher at a City of London function.

"In the midst of describing how Hayek's Road to Serfdom had influenced her thinking, she suddenly grasped my wrist and said very emphatically: 'Don't touch the duck pate, bishop, it's very fattening.'"

The bishop also referred to Lady Thatcher's (in)famous Sermon on the Mound when she addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland about wealth and told it: "I leave you with the earnest hope that may we all come nearer to that other country whose 'ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace'."

Mr Salmond might have been forgiven for raising an eyebrow at the thought that out of the mouth of his political opponent once came the image of a Scotland he would like to see.

Yet the First Minister might have been more disappointed to hear that genuine independence is the "essential pre-condition for living in another-centred way, beyond ourselves" and in what Mrs T, an avowed Unionist, called "interdependence".

While the ethereal music of Faure's Requiem filled the cathedral with melancholy, it was quickly followed by the forceful tones of Holst's I Vow to Thee My Country, underscoring the patriotism Lady Thatcher emulated during her premiership.

After Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, read the blessing, urging God to support us through "this troublous life", the bearers, again with pinpoint military precision and great care, carried out the coffin followed by the Queen, Prince Philip, and Lady Thatcher's relatives.

Again the muffled bell sounded and the farewell music was, appropriately enough, Elgar's sad but noble Nimrod.

As the great and the good slowly filed out in a sea of black suits, black dresses and black hats, one figure stood out.

The unselfconscious Ken Clarke, the former chancellor and now the Minister Without Portfolio, emerged in his trademark brown hush puppies, crumpled grey lounge suit and club tie. Sartorially at least, some people are, whatever the occasion, not for turning.

POIGNANT: A who's who of politics filed into St Paul's Cathedral for the funeral service.