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The man leading the funeral procession was dressed in a red suit tasselled with gold. He wore a tall black top hat and waved a baton as he walked. Behind him was a phalanx of trumpeters, each wearing a medal and ribbons. A long trail of black cars moved at walking pace behind them. The trumpeters played a New Orleans dirge and beside the hearse a small man tapped his walking stick in time to the music.
They moved slowly along Vaucluse Road and as they moved, one car at a time, every one hundred metres or so, pulled over and parked outside a neat, well-tended lawn with a driveway swept clean of leaves. Then the driver got out of the car, threw the keys back in and walked off. The procession streamed forward, losing a car at a time.
Vaucluse was a suburb of families with men who had go
