Lee Rigby's funeral brings thousands out on streets of Bury Link to video: Lee Rigby, Woolwich murder victim, remembered at funeral Fifty-one days after the soldier Lee Rigby was hacked to death on a London street, his body was finally laid to rest near his home town of Middleton. Thousands of people lined the streets of nearby Bury on Friday to pay their respects to the fusilier and listen his powerful funeral service, which was broadcast live across the town's market square and attended by dignitaries including the prime minister, David Cameron, and London mayor, Boris Johnson. On a day with little to smile about, Rigby's colleagues lightened the mood inside Bury's packed parish church with a eulogy which captured the dormitory humour of life in the barracks. One of his best friends, Sean Sheer, said when he first met Rigby he considered him "the most annoying and campest man I'd ever met - what kind of grown man turns up to work in a Westlife T-shirt?" Rigby's dubious love for the Irish boyband was a running theme. Westlife's song I'm Already There was played at the service, along with R Kelly's World's Greatest. The soldier's wife, Rebecca, said before the funeral that her husband took her to see Westlife at Wembley, pretending he had bought the tickets for her, "when we all knew they were for Lee." Lee Rigby's coffin leaves Bury parish church after his funeral, followed by his family. Lieutenant Colonel Jim Taylor, Rigby's commanding officer in the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, recalled raised eyebrows when Rigby volunteered to be a member of the drums corps. I think this surprised his fellow fusiliers and his family, as Lee had no musical background - a well-known passion for Westlife and other boy bands, but no real musical skills. Taylor remembered how Rigby "drove everyone crazy with his incessant tapping of tables, steering wheels" as he went through the six-month drum training. To be with Rigby, said Taylor, "was to be where it was most fun - the centre of good times and much mischief. People quickly fell under his spell. Whether it was in work or off duty, at a ceremonial engagement or on operations, Lee just knew how to lighten the mood. He could brighten a room within moments, and, by all accounts, could clear a dancefloor in seconds if a Whitney Houston track was playing. There was also mention of Rigby's Patrick Swayze impression during a regimental BBQ, and much amusement among the drum platoon when it emerged he was allergic to the new camouflage cream. But despite the ribbing, those who spoke at Rigby's funeral paid tribute above all to a family man, whose love for his two-year-old son Jack knew no bounds. "Everywhere Lee went, Jack would be with him, showing him off at every opportunity," recalled Sheer. On Thursday, the day before his dad's funeral, Jack arrived for the vigil at Bury parish church wearing a Manchester United top bearing his father's nickname, Riggers. Lee Rigby's son, two-year-old Jack, attends his father's funeral service. Photograph: McPix Ltd/Rex Features On the day his dad was laid to rest, the toddler was wearing another T-shirt made especially for the occasion. This time it was navy blue, with gold letters on the back: "My Daddy My Hero." His grandmother, the fusilier's mother Lyn, was wearing a dark jacket on to which she had pinned the red and white fluffy hackle which usually juts out from the regiment's berets. The family, who have been inundated with cards, letters and flowers of condolence from all over the country and abroad and from all faiths, wanted a private service, with well-wishers asked to show their respect by lining the streets outside. Hundreds of veterans and members of the public gathered to honour 25-year-old Rigby, a machine gunner and ceremonial drummer in 2RRF, who was killed as he returned to Woolwich barracks from the Tower of London on 22 May. In her address, the Rev Clare Callanan said: "Fusilier Lee Rigby has been tragically separated from all of this, from his life and his work which he was so proud. He no longer lives to the beat of that drum. He has been separated from his future and all the potential and possibilities that were there. He has been separated as a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a mate and a brother in arms from all of you.