Trooping the Colour

Looking good at age 94 and 99 respectively

We are at great-great-grandma's where the TV rules the day, and have just finished watching the Queen's official birthday Trooping the Colour at Windsor Castle. It brought back memories of school days. Once a certain age all pupils, unless with good reason, had to choose to be an Army, RAF or Navy cadet and play soldiers every Friday afternoon thereafter. I choose the RAF. Most of the time we were square bashing but there was some desk work - I remember learning about the Bernoulli principle and lift. I still have a certificate from an exam we took - I'll dig it out when we get home. On one occasion the NCO giving the lecture asked the class if we knew what "info" was. Bloody information he shouted, as if that was a peculiar revelation.

Every term there would be an outing. We came to school in our cadet regalia and bearing a packed lunch and were whisked off in a hired coach to our mystery destination, often a military base with real soldiers. On one such occasion I got to fly in a chipmunk. On another we went up in a cargo plane with no windows so one wonders what the point was. We had our own firing range using .22 rifles where I seem to remember I did better than average: on one outing got to fire a .303 and experienced its considerable kick-back.

Once a year there would be a General Parade over which a visiting top-notch would preside. It meant standing for hours on end waiting for things to happen. Usually one or two cadets would faint during this ordeal and this added a bit of interest to the otherwise dullness.

John Ashurst with Duke of Edinburgh 1965

One year the top-notch was the Duke of Edinburgh. He arrived by helicopter, landing in the playing field, and that was sufficient novelty to mark the event in our memories. So we did the general salute and march past thing, like in the Trooping the Colour, in which you marched forward whilst facing to the right and saluting. And then back to standing at attention in our ranks whilst the Duke did his rounds, stopping every so often to ask some boy an inane question. And I fervently hoped that he would not stop in front of myself. The same sort of feeling as in pass-the-parcel with forfeits, or that ridiculous party game where you have to dress up and eat a bar of chocolate with knife and fork, chocolate the previous folk have slobbered over...