We spent this morning in front of the cenotaph in London, to watch Jon's (Dave's brother) regimental parade - The Royal Tank Regiment. They are the only regiment allowed to parade in London, for questionable historical reasons. One story is that the King forgot to invite them to the Victory parade at the end of WWI... Anyway, they are always there the Sunday after Rememberance Day.
The band leads the way and all stand to attention in front of the cenotaph for 2 minutes silence at 11 o'clock.
Grumpy bag-pipers!
They then march past the cenotaph and on to the special RTR memorial close to Trafalgar Square. Jon is in the above picture, far left, and the picture above that in the middle.
Off they go...
Everyone was out enjoying the wonderful November sun... Trafalgar Square's 4th plinth has a new addition - a 5m statue of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park - actually a New Zealander. He was a WWI flying ace who subsequently joined the RAF and played a key role in defending England from invasion in the Battle of Britain. And the statue itself is from New Zealand as well!
We also attended a church service for the RTR. This involved the unusual ceremony of laying down a 'standard'. This standard (or flag) has been in use for 25 years now and has been replaced, so instead of throwing the old one away, it is presented to the church for safe keeping. Obviously a rare event, it was interesting to see. Here are the previous standards:
The Royal Tank Regiment is a new regiment in the army, only formed at around WWI, so there are only 8 standards in the church so far (each one lasts 25 years, but 1st RTR and 2nd RTR have one each...). It was an educational day!
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