“Friendship was David’s great gift to others,” Parliament’s duty priest and close confident of Sir David Amess told mourners in Westminster yesterday.

At a requiem mass in Westminster Cathedral Canon Pat Brown, Roman Catholic duty priest for Parliament, addressed Sir David’s colleagues and contemporaries.

"Just over 38 years ago David Amess, Julia, and myself stood here in the middle of this sanctuary,” Canon Brown said. "They were getting married and I was officiating at their wedding. He was the newly elected MP for Basildon, just three months into the job.

“Since my appointment at Parliament 12 years ago now, David’s office was one place I was always made welcome into for a cup of tea and a chat, so we go back a long way.

He added: “Sadly, my last visit to his office was on that awful Friday afternoon. I had just finished a wedding blessing in the chapel of St Mary in Parliament and heard the tragic news.

“I went over immediately to see his staff, they were devastated. There were tears, and it struck me, these people weren’t just his staff, they were his friends, and they loved him.”

Politicians including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and three former prime ministers attended the service in central London on Tuesday morning, following a private funeral held in Southend a day earlier.

“Friendship was David’s great gift to others,” Canon Brown continued. “Not just to those who worked alongside him and agreed with him, but to everyone in the house, including those who did not share his political or religious views.”

Former MP Ann Widdecombe, who delivered the eulogy, told attendees she struck up a great friendship with him campaigning against abortion.

"The son of an electrician and seamstress, David absorbed a stringent work ethic in his earliest years,” she said.

“But his passion was always politics and he started economics and government and Bournemouth University before going on to be elected as Conservative councillor for Redbridge, and then in 1983 as the Member of Parliament for Basildon.

“He was a very close personal friend, I was godmother to one of his daughters, I knew the family very well, we stayed with each other.”

Recalling one of the great Sir David stories, Canon Brown regaled attendees with the moment the 69-year-old veteran MP accidentally had the Pope bless a pack of sweets.

“David could laugh at himself, and in doing so he brought many people together,” he said.

“When in St Peter’s Square in Rome, and the Pope was passing by, how he struggled to find in his pocket his Rosary Beads, seeking to pull them out for the Pope to bless them, he presented instead a boiled sweet in its package, which Pope Bennet graciously and innocently blessed and moved on.”