Final curtain for showman who arranged royal jubilees

HE claimEd to have burned down moscow ‘more times than Napoleon could ever have imagined’ in his recreations of famous battles.

But the exuberant life of major Sir michael Parker — orchestrator of royal pageants and fireworks displays, including the Queen’s Silver and Golden Jubilee celebrations — has reached its final curtain.

The supreme showman died this week, aged 81, bequeathing a treasury of indelible memories — especially for those close to the action when things didn’t go entirely to plan. One such occasion was the lighting of the ‘Queen’s Bonfire’, a chain of beacons stretching the length of Britain, which Parker devised for Her majesty’s Silver Jubilee in 1977.

The monarch was to light the first beacon using a torch from the 1948 london Olympics. The torch went out before being re-lit and handed to a young boy who, overwhelmed by the occasion, burst into tears. a generator also failed in Windsor Great Park, where thousands had gathered to watch on giant screens, so half the site was plunged into darkness.

‘Your majesty,’ said Parker, ‘ i’m afraid it’s all going terribly wrong.’ ‘Oh good,’ came the reply. ‘What fun!’

Ever after, i’m told by an old friend who served with Parker in the Queen’s Own Hussars, Hm greeted him with twinkling eyes and the inquiry: ‘What’s gone wrong this evening?’

Remaining uninhibited, Parker stuck to his own rules. Rule One was: ‘Have a very big idea — then double it’; while Rule Two decreed: ‘if it’s easy to do, it’s not worth doing.’ Rule Seven was invaluable: ‘always stand as close to the principal guests as possible, so you’ll be the first in with your excuses when things go wrong.’

The rules had evolved during army service, which culminated in the recreation of the Battle of Trafalgar on a lake in Germany, during which trees on land caught fire, as did aluminium boats which sank. ‘The band continued to play,’ recalled Parker, ‘and frogmen appeared complaining that the water was f***ing HOT!’