Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service coming to you live from London.

I'm Sean Lay. In Georgia they are saying goodbye. Goodbye to a former president of the United States.

Goodbye to an occupant of the governor's mansion in Atlanta. Goodbye to the owner of a peanut farm in archery.

Goodbye to their friend from Plains, Jimmy, the boy who became the 39th head of estate of the USA.

As news outcomes on air, a private family service is underway for President Jimmy Carter,

who died at the age of 100 last month.

It's taking place at the Carter

Centre, an organisation devoted to advancing and defending multi-party democracy, which Mr Carter

founded after leaving office during the longest post-presidency in history of any occupant

of the Oval Office. Jimmy Carter was a Democrat, but official Georgia is represented this Saturday by a Republican

Governor Brian Kemp there to greet the cortege on behalf of all Georgians. Just before 11 this

morning local time, the hearse halted in plains, the tiny town where he was born and died

100 years apart, where he was still taking Sunday school classes into his mid-nighties.

As the car waited, engine purring smoothly, a bell was rung 39 times for the man who was the 39th president of the United States of America.

While the casket has just been carried into the Carter Center in Atlanta,

let's pause and hear the choir as the family file into their seats for this private service.

On the sea Most Holy Spirit

Who disrued

Upon the chaos

Dark and rude

And bid its angry to cease, and give your wild confusion, cease.

The state funeral spans six days, three cities and multiple stops at places which held particular significance for the Navy veteran, peanut farmer, state governor and president of the United States who served in the White House from 1977 to 1981.

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