Moving quietly and solemnly through the moonlight, mourners in Michigan waited for a chance to file past the casket of Gerald Ford, welcoming home the 38th US president for a final time.

Ordinary Americans joined President George Bush and other dignitaries in Washington to pay final respects to Gerald Ford as the former US president’s flag-draped coffin rested under the Capitol dome, before a last round of funeral services and burial near his family home in Michigan.