Trooping the Colour: Why the royal event was the late Queen's favourite

0:02The Telegraph.

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1:37Welcome to The Royal Tea, a quick cuppa, a brand new podcast serving up the very best royal insight from the experts in the know. That's us, me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Hannah Finesse, the Telegraph's Royal Editor. And ahead of Trooping the Colour, we'll be delving into the pomp and pageantry of the late Queen's favourite royal event.

2:06Hannah, I've got a confession to make. In all of the years that I was covering the Royal Family, I never quite worked out what Trooping the Colour was all about. It had something to do with the flag. It had something to do with the regiment. It had something to do with carriages and things. Horse guards parade. All of that effort, all of that pom-pom pageantry and all we write about is the balcony. Well, basically it was like, who's in a carriage, who's wearing what? And we were lip-reading balcony appearances. Oh, and obsessing over the flypast. The flypast. But it is a massively significant royal event.

2:39The British Armed Forces train for ages for this. It's a huge moment for everybody involved. It goes back to Charles II, where if you think about our troops assembling on foot or on horseback, they had a flag, which is called the Colour, and it would literally be trooped up and down in front of the men with their muskets or their pikes and their swords so they know what it looked like. So in the chaos of a real battle back then, they would look for their colour and they would gather around it. That's the origins of it. Over the years, it morphed into also being the sovereign's birthday parade, so it's now the king's sort of second official birthday.

3:12And that's so that they have a summer birthday celebration that isn't rained on in case they're born in a winter month, which in the case of the king he is because he's a November baby. weird calling him a baby a boomer baby um so that's a kind of time for everyone to come out and celebrate and can anyone go to trooping the color because i do and we might put this on my socials i do have a picture of me and my brothers in the 1980s at trooping the color in horse guards parade i'm wearing like a navy blue velvet dress with a uh peter pan collar like a sailor girl yeah and i was like and i remember vividly it's funny what i ended up doing in my career I remember being convinced that the Queen was waving at me individually.

3:55Well, isn't that a gift? Said to my mum and dad going, the Queen is waving at me? My mum and dad were like, yeah, she is. She must be so grateful you're here. But you can apply for tickets, I think, if you're a member of the public. So there are three versions. There are two weekends in the lead up to what is maybe the real thing that the royal family go to that you can get tickets for. You can get tickets for the main event. Or if you want to just see the royal family, you can just lie in the streets between the Palace and Horse Girls Parade. In fact, when I used to cover it, I used to stand on the Queen Victoria Memorial with the photographers because actually being in the parade ground, you were kind of away from the action.

4:29You wanted to see them leaving in their carriages and then you wanted to see them returning in their carriages and then you wanted to have a great bird's eye view of the balcony. Yeah, the curtain opening, fly past, Prince Louis going, wow. Why did the late Queen love trooping so much? Because of course she used to do it on horseback for years and years before she got a little older. Up until 86 when they decided she couldn't do it. And she was nearly assassinated at trooping and she still carried on. She just sort of patted the horse to settle it down and carried on. Horses, military, formality.

5:02Yes. So it ticks all the boxes for the late queen. Pageantry. And she really understood how much work went into it. So if you actually watch it, it goes on. It's a long event. It goes on for hours. And it is totally precise, kind of marching up and down, the music. And she understood how much work went into that. and it was her moment really. She inspected the guards and it was just a moment to say thank you. So who's going to be on horseback this year? So this year it is the turn of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards to troop their colour. Camilla is their Colonel-in-Chief, Queen Camilla. She won't be on horseback.

5:33She never rides in the parade. She'll be in the carriage. Does she have a right to ride if she wanted to but just opts out? I think she does. The same for the Princess of Wales, right? Because she's Colonel-in-Chief of the Irish Guards? The Irish Guards. And she's never ridden. She isn't a rider. although there was an idea years ago that she might try. She might do, but I think it would put so much pressure on her and if you're not a natural equestrian, then it's difficult. Also, there was a story a while ago, and I don't know if it was ever true, that she's allergic to horses. Yes, I think she is.

6:03The king used to ride. The king rode for his first trooping as king in 2023. He stopped it when he fell ill. He's been in carriages the last few years and he'll decide this year whether he wants to go back to it. But he is 77 and it's a huge amount of pressure, as you say, to ride through the streets of London. Prince William will be on horseback, barely recognisable under the big bear skin. You can kind of see the eyes and the nose. And that's a proper bear skin, like the really heavy ones that are worn by all of those troops, some of them fainting and things. It's quite something, isn't it? Yeah, and Anne will ride, of course.

6:34Anne will ride! The commentators love to say she's probably the most experienced rider on parade, which is true. Well, she is a silver Olympic medal winner, I think, Montreal, 1976. if memory serves me correctly. But my goodness, she's in her 70s and she's going to ride in this parade. What a legend. Legend. Edward would ride. Edward would ride. He was less confident as a rider, but I think there was a story a couple of years ago that Andrew was sort of helping him behind the scenes. Wow. Andrew won't be there for obvious reasons. He is no longer a colonel. He's excommunicated from the entire scene.

7:08He'll be watching a telly in March Farm if he can bear her. Fergie might pop up somewhere in the crowd because we haven't seen her in a while. Where is she? We need to know. Not such a treat in the colour. Why haven't you, like your ginger network, why haven't you been communicating with your fellow flamed head? Why have I not been allowed to visit? You're 1 % of the population, Hannah. You should all be in communication, finding out where Fergie is. Me, Fergie and Harry and the WhatsApp. Exactly. I think I should be allowed to go on a tour of the wellness spas of Europe to see if I can find her on expenses.

7:40I know. I wouldn't mind reflecting on things for£10 ,000 a night paid for by hopefully others. Wonderful. Yeah, great. Well, we'll do that later, you and I, you have a jacuzzi. So they're the people on horseback. And then what happens to those not on horseback? And can we expect to see the Wales children? We can, right? Yes. So the highest pressure job on the day of trooping really is the Princess of Wales, who goes in a carriage bus to keep her three children in line, which is no problem nowadays, really. but when they were tiny, it was no small thing. Was she handing out antihistamines like they were going to...

8:14Piriton them, like they've gone on a long-haul flight? Or was that just me? That was just you. Well, maybe if you make it, you can have a Haribo. No, to be fair, it was never Piriton. It was maybe a kind of, you know, comforting spoonful of cow pot. Before you implicate yourself and anybody ring social services, we don't think the Princess of Wales is drugging her children. Well, she could hand out for herself. You know, if I go on a flight, I'm not the best traveler. I just have a little handful of calms.

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10:32And the gravel across horse guards. Oh, don't get me started on the gravel. I hope she's in wedges. Let's be perfectly honest. So they step in the carriages at Buckingham Palace. They go all the way to horse guards. The cameras are on them nearly the entire time. So this is where you see Charlotte sort of bossing her brothers around and telling them to wave. Louis trying to climb out. Then they get to horse guards and they go up to the Duke of Wellington's office. So you just see them kind of peeking out the window, but they don't have to be on show standing upright on parade. No, because that's too much to ask kids.

11:02to do for all that time. Even when they're nearly 13 like George. So he's got a long future ahead of him standing in that parade ground. He doesn't have to do it yet. Well, you say standing. I suppose in the future, depending on what happens, he could be on horseback, right? Yes. The George of the future could be riding in that parade very, very easily. He will be. And maybe even, why am I, sorry, why am I being sexist? Maybe even his sister and his younger brother, depending on whether they take on any military patronages patronages or they go into the military you'd certainly expect that they were made royal colonels god what do you think about it like these children coming of age and it's all very interesting now and they're young like them becoming teenagers it's going to be quite fun actually yeah and then you know we've all watched them grow up yes so when they're young adults riding in these parades they're on the balcony one day they'll hopefully have their own children and this is part of the royal family, isn't it?

11:59This is why people are so fascinated by them. Do you think we'll be still commentating when they have their own children? We'll be 90. I remember being outside St Mary's Paddington when he was born. When we saw Louis say wow. Yeah, do you know what? If Channel 5 wants to make that documentary, I'll be in it. The people in our old people's home will be fascinated by the stories. Yeah, we'll be those old women who'll be like, they're completely mad. I met the Queen once. No, you didn't, Camilla. Have your cup of tea and your biscuit and be quiet. Shall we discuss, you mentioned the Queen almost being shot at a previous Troop in the Colour, which I suppose is the most serious end of the wedge.

12:36There have been some other funny moments. I've got written down here, Prince Louis' Royal Wave 2019. Oh, bless it. Yeah, he was just so happy. He just couldn't stop waving. He'd obviously been told this is the moment where you wave. Love that. And he did it full throttle. And I love the one years before that when George was quite small of Savannah Phillips, who was obviously trying to take care of him a little bit. And I think at one point it actually stifled him. Is that George's second cousin? How do we work that one out? First cousin, once removed. Their parents are cousins. Their parents are Peter Phillips's daughter, Savannah.

13:08Yes, that's right. And they were just having some hijinks. Cute. And we remember 1988, a two-year-old Prince Harry memorably stuck his tongue out at the spectators while being held by Princess Diana, a moment of unscripted childhood mischief. Meghan's debut, 2018. So that was the month after they married then, because it's always in June trooping, and they got married May 2018 in Windsor. She turned up, although some people have rather unkindly repositioned all that and said that she was being frozen out or she was trying to freeze. Do you know, have you seen some of those kind of memes? They've been carefully cut.

13:47You can turn anything into that, can't you? The story of her debut was the fashion, wasn't it? She had that slightly off-the-shoulder dress. A shoulder was displayed at Trooping. Shock horror, Hannah. Yes. I don't remember being that shocked by it at the time. Oh, and back in 2011, Kate also had a post-marital debut on the balcony because they got married in the April of 2011 and then a few months later she appeared in a stunning white outfit. It's one of the good things about the balcony is that it gives you a snapshot, doesn't it, of whatever the royal family looks like at that moment. So once a year for trooping, we get this who's who of who's in and who's out of the royal family.

14:24What does the monarchy look like at this moment? Also, I do understand that they do enjoy that fly pass as much as we do because obviously you get old World War II planes coming over spitfires and what have you. If it's good weather, this is the other thing, got to have a clear sky because there have been moments where the fly passes had to be cancelled. But they genuinely, like we all do, I mean, frankly, you're not British if you don't enjoy a display by the red arrows. And they understand it as well. They can recognise the planes. You'll see the grown-ups telling the children which plane is which.

14:55And because they're a military family, ultimately. Shameless plug for myself. I shall be commentating Trooping the Colour on GB News on Saturday, June 13th. I'll tune in. I can just type up what you're saying. Thank you so much. Well, that is Trooping the Colour summarised over a quick cuppa. Hannah, thank you very much. And we will be back next week with more Royal Goss.

15:19We'll be right back.

15:46on track because there's no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's fast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. Movement unlocks something words can barely touch. That rush, that freedom, that feeling of being unapologetically alive. Peloton's cross-training Tread Plus was built to take you there. Powered by Peloton IQ, you've got personalized plans, real-time insights, all in one place.

16:28Go from sprints to strength training with the swivel of a screen. Let yourself run, lift, fail, try, and go. Explore cross-training Tread Plus at onepeloton.com.