David Trimble's extraordinary life of ups and downs

The funeral service for David Trimble was held at a church called Harmony Hill.

It seemed an appropriate place to remember a politician who faced many uphill struggles in the search for peace.

If he was looking down at the funeral service at Harmony Hill Presbyterian Church, he would have seen many old friends and foes.

Among them were Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams and Democratic Unionist Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, who quit the Ulster Unionist Party when Trimble was leader.

Donaldson thought Trimble was too soft as a unionist. Adams felt he was too hard.

Both men were under the same roof to pay tribute to him at his funeral.

Trimble may have not won their adoration, but he certainly gained their admiration, for his political courage.

"David was braver than anyone I knew," said one of his friends as he left the church in Lisburn.

Part of the street outside the church, Moss Road, was lined with people. Many applauded Boris Johnson as he departed, on what was probably his last visit to Northern Ireland as prime minister.

Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill also received some applause as did the Social Democratic and Labour Party's Alex Attwood and Sean Farren.

Funerals of public figures often reveal details about a side of the person unseen by wider society.

In the sermon, the Reverend Charles McMullen talked as much about Trimble the man as the politician.

He quoted from his school reports at Bangor Grammar, and his love for classical music and Elvis Presley. Then he turned to his role as a devoted husband and father.

Dr McMullen told the congregation: "David did not always endear himself to (his wife) Daphne and the children, arriving home on one occasion, driving a Vauxhall Astra convertible which he had purchased without due consultation and causing some members of the family to sit shivering in the back, wrapped in blankets as they made their way down various motorways."

The back of the order of service showed him relaxing in the 1970s in a wide-collared cream shirt.

One friend said he looked more like David Bowie than David Trimble in those days.

Another insight came in the morning edition of the Belfast Telegraph, in an article written by Trimble's former press officer David Kerr.

Behind the scenes, after the Good Friday Agreement, it seems the under-fire Ulster Unionist leader did not mind the challenge.

Kerr wrote: "Our backs were against the wall, pretty much all the time, but that didn't bother him or any of us.

"In fact, we embraced it and we thrived on it."

The turbulent world of politics was a far cry from the calm corridors of academia where he began his career, as a law lecturer at Queen's University in Belfast.

He gave it up to fight elections.

It was quite a political journey, and most of it was captured on camera, from Westminster to Drumcree to Stormont to Oslo, where he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The death of William David Trimble at the age of 77 brings to an end an extraordinary life of ups and downs.

It began at sea-level in Bangor and ended on Harmony Hill.