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You have to be a bit brave to attend this parade because a week before the date comes round the papers will start churning out scary stories about terrorists wanting to blow up the King. This year it's all about ISIS (they are the bad boys at the moment). Before them it was Al Qaeda. Before them it was the IRA, and before them it was probably someone else. Nothing bad ever happens, of course, because with a whole army of coppers and soldiers in attendance it's probably the safest place in the country.
Security down Whitehall
This parade has some of the tightest security that I have ever encountered in London. They don't let the public into Whitehall until 8 AM and the queues start forming long before that. What they do is barricade both ends with metal fences and a phalanx of police officers, and you have to pass through beeping x-ray machines to get inside the cordon. They even make you empty out the contents of your pockets into a see-through plastic bag -- that's how tight the security is.
Where's the best place to stand?
If you want one of the best viewing spots then you definitely need to get there when it opens at 8 AM because the best areas will be snapped up by 8:30 AM, and the whole place will be jam-packed by half-nine. I ended up choosing the piece of pavement outside the Red Lion pub, but now that I've been here a while I think I've probably messed up because the ceremony takes place on the north-side of the Cenotaph (on the Downing Street side) and I am on the south-side (the King Charles Street side).
But it's swings and roundabouts, because if you stand on the north-side you'll also have three rows of soldiers stationed between you and the King, and those guys are ten-feet tall before they've even put their hats on. If you stand on the south-side then you'll have no soldiers at all but you'll also be further away. In hindsight I think I'd rather stand as close to the Cenotaph as possible.
It's 9 AM now and we're squeezed in shoulder to shoulder all the way down the pavement, watching the pigeons and the police. The TV camera tower has just started broadcasting some classical arias over the top of our heads and the Boy Scouts are handing out hymn sheets and an Order of Service pamphlet.
I've honestly never seen so many policemen in my life. I think they must have put the entire Metropolitan police force out this morning because there are hundreds of them everywhere, maybe as many as a thousand -- and that's just in Whitehall alone! Some of them have got automatic weapons slung across their chests and there are marksmen on the roof with rifles and binoculars and a helicopter is doing constant circles in the sky.
Route for the Remembrance Day Parade
While I'm standing here waiting for something to happen I'm going to take a minute to explain the entire parade route from start to finish. Unlike all of the other big parades in London this one is basically just the soldiers on their own, and you don't really see the King at all. The military bands will march down Birdcage Walk from Wellington Barracks and form up on the south-side of the Cenotaph. The veterans will then form up on the north-side, stretching all the way back to Trafalgar Square.
The King will then pop out of a building in Whitehall for the wreath laying ceremony and disappear back inside again. He doesn't parade down from Buckingham Palace in his coach, or anything like that. Once he's disappeared the veterans will parade past the Cenotaph to Parliament Square, and then loop back up to Horse Guards parade ground via Great George Street and the eastern edge of St. James's Park. So it's basically just a very small circle -- and you need to be down Whitehall to see anything worthwhile.
I'm still waiting for the parade to start. There's not long to go now. I've been listening to the crowd's conversation and I seem to be surrounded by a couple of hundred army wives. If you happened to blurt out that you were a pacifist in the midst of this lot then you might get a few funny looks.
Luckily I don't mind a bit of war and I'm perfectly happy for people to fight each other, as long as I'm not the one doing the actual fighting. Because without war we would have no war movies. We'd have no Great Escape, no Dirty Dozen, no Rambo and no Commando comics. We'd have no Churchill, no Nelson and no Marlborough either -- so what the hell. Let's go for it. A little bit of war never hurt anyone.
The anticipation begins to build at 10.15 AM because the military bands have started marching round from Parliament Square. It's all foot soldiers and musicians in this parade, armed with trumpets and tubas instead of muskets and guns. At 10.45 AM the politicians and military bigwigs start appearing and take their places level with Downing Street. The King just pops out of a side building and doesn't really walk anywhere, so unless you've picked a spot level with the Cenotaph then you're highly unlikely to see him. [Note: they do erect some big TV screens further up Whitehall for people with a lousy view.]
Wreath laying ceremony and two-minute silence
Everybody was expecting the two-minute silence to begin at 11 AM but they surprised us by starting early. The silence just seemed to descend on us out of the blue and we had sixty-seconds of hush before the first cannon fired. Everyone suddenly became motionless at once and it was such an eerie feeling... like time itself had stopped. Everybody's eyes locked in their sockets. Bones froze into position -- I even slowed down my breathing. And it was at that exact moment that I remembered I hadn't put my phone on mute, and with everyone locked in a stone pose I couldn't pull it out to switch it off (I was at the front of the barricade!).
I don't mind telling you that the next two minutes were some of the most terrifying moments of my life. I was convinced that my phone was going to blast out its bell and the TV cameras would swing round and focus on this shame-faced idiot in the crowd. I would have been mortified, but luckily nothing happened. The only sound we heard was a flag flapping against its metal pole. Whilst everyone else was praying for the war dead I was praying for my phone to stay asleep.
When the second cannon fired everyone could start breathing again. Then a soldier blew the Last Post and the wreath laying ceremony began, where the Royals and politicians take it in turns to lay their poppies at the foot of the memorial. After that came some prayers and readings from the priest, and then everyone perked up for the National Anthem because you always sing it sweet when the King is here to hear it.
If you don't choke up and shed a tear at this bit, standing shoulder to shoulder with the cops and soldiers and veterans, shivering in the chilly wind in Whitehall, then you need to get your head and heart examined because there's something wrong with them.
War veterans parading past The Cenotaph
It's 11.30 AM now and the military bands have started marching off. This is when the actual parade begins. The monarch and politicians don't bother with this bit, they all disappear back inside the warm buildings down Whitehall, but the veterans who have formed up in the northern half of Whitehall will start their slow shuffle past the Cenotaph, and then go round the back of the Treasury towards Horse Guards. This line is constantly being replenished from the 10,000 servicemen waiting behind.
If you take my advice then you'll bring an extra pair of hands with you for this bit because you are morally obliged to clap every single soldier who files past for the next sixty minutes. And I am not exaggerating. You will have to clap for an entire hour as battalions of wheelchairs pass you by. Instead of tanks and horses these guys have got mobility scooters and zimmer frames. Instead of guns and swords they have umbrellas and walking sticks. They have chests full of medals and look as proud as punch because for two hours they become the pride of the nation again -- then it's straight back down the old people's home.
The Gurkhas & Chelsea Pensioners
The Gurkhas and the Chelsea Pensioners are the undoubted superstars of the parade because everybody knows what their uniforms look like, so we all broke out into a round of cheers and whooping until they disappeared out of sight. I enjoyed watching all of the old sergeants as well, still barking out orders at the age of eighty to their platoon of old age pensioners, admonishing them to keep better step with their plastic hips and arthritic joints. (Once a soldier always a soldier!) Those guys would probably march off to war right now if the King came out and asked them.
The whole thing came to an end around 12.30 PM when the last brass band walked off to huge cheers.
If you enjoy Cenotaph then you might like to visit Churchill War Rooms (you can walk it in less than 3 mins) and Downing Street (you can walk there in less than 1 min). I've also written a little review of the Cenotaph itself
