I had forgotten that today was the Saturday in June when the Queen's Birthday Parade (AKA Trooping the Colour), so I am sitting in front of my TV watching the Parade unfold.
I have attended rehearsals for the Parade on two occasions ... and it is a spectacle that is well worth seeing close up. At one of the rehearsals I watched it poured with rain just before the whole thing started, and parts of the parade ground at Horse Guards were under water. I remember one particular officer, who was much shorter than everyone else on parade, having to mark time in the middle of a very large puddle. As his feet stamped up and down he managed to soak himself and the Guardsmen who were directly behind him. When he eventually had to march forward his legs were so much shorter than everyone else's that he had to almost goose step to keep up with them. In addition he seemed to be wearing a particularly tall bearskin cap (no doubt to make him look less out of place alongside the other soldiers who were on parade) and the rain had made it a lot heavier than normal. As a result, every time he had to turn his head as he passed the saluting stand, the bearskin cap twisted on his head and began to lean over. To this day I do not know how it stayed on ... but it did.
Today's Parade was led by the youngest of the Guards regiments, the Welsh Guards, and it was their colour that was trooped.
I have attended rehearsals for the Parade on two occasions ... and it is a spectacle that is well worth seeing close up. At one of the rehearsals I watched it poured with rain just before the whole thing started, and parts of the parade ground at Horse Guards were under water. I remember one particular officer, who was much shorter than everyone else on parade, having to mark time in the middle of a very large puddle. As his feet stamped up and down he managed to soak himself and the Guardsmen who were directly behind him. When he eventually had to march forward his legs were so much shorter than everyone else's that he had to almost goose step to keep up with them. In addition he seemed to be wearing a particularly tall bearskin cap (no doubt to make him look less out of place alongside the other soldiers who were on parade) and the rain had made it a lot heavier than normal. As a result, every time he had to turn his head as he passed the saluting stand, the bearskin cap twisted on his head and began to lean over. To this day I do not know how it stayed on ... but it did.
Today's Parade was led by the youngest of the Guards regiments, the Welsh Guards, and it was their colour that was trooped.