For weary royal-watchers, sun sets early on the party
AS NIGHT fell on Saturday and the royal party cranked up inside the grounds of Windsor Castle, Karen Otis and Marcy Polanco were far from the only well-wishers on the streets to strike an altogether more sober note.
“We’ve had one glass of Pimm’s and a pint of Windsor Knot [the four per cent bitter brewed especially for the weekend],” said Otis, a 51-year-old New Yorker wearing a fascinator, string of pearls and a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Royal Love”.
Not that wild, she admitted. Rather than indulge in the carousing one might typically associate with such an event, Otis said that, as two African American women, she and Polanco had come to Britain to mark the historic moment of a member of the British Royal family marrying a US citizen of mixed heritage. “It has been amazing,” she said. “I feel as if I’m channelling my inner duchess.”
There had been warnings of
It feels like the whole world is here. Having a black woman in the Royal family makes me proud FLORIANA UATANAU
“Saturday night carnage” in Windsor following a day of drinking in the sun, with an FA Cup final to boot. But in fact the evening throng emanated a relaxed and international vibe.
As another fabulously dressed (floral print skirt and turquoise fascinator) and enthusiastically sober American, 48-year-old Stephanie Abdullah from Washington, put it: “I wanted to celebrate the fact Harry has married and moreover that he has married a black woman. That is what got me on the plane.”
The significance of this royal wedding attracted a truly global crowd to join the 100,000-strong melee in Windsor, with well-wishers spanning almost every continent.
There was even a representative from Namibia (the rumoured honeymoon destination of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex), reclining with a picnic against the castle walls in the last of the evening sunshine.
“It is just amazing and feels like the whole world is here,” said Floriana Uatanau. “Having a black woman in the Royal family makes me very proud and I love her.”
Germans Annika Bauer, 18, and Franziska Speckle, 20, wore matching “Marry me Harry” T-shirts and crowns and waved a cardboard cut-out of their national flag.
Rather than head to the nearest hostelry for the evening, their plan was to simply stroll the streets soaking up the atmosphere. “It’s like a fairytale to be here,” said Bauer.
One group of five American friends aged in their 30s and 40s and wearing Queen-inspired wedding hats proved similarly less inclined for a big night out and admitted that come 10pm they were heading to their hotel room for a nightcap of a Bud Light.
They had crossed the Atlantic purely for the excitement of the day, said 38-year-old Tami Mcbride, rather than an evening on the tiles.
Of course, those wishing for more typical royal wedding after-party fare did not have to look all that far for alcohol-fuelled frolics. At one stage, the entirety of a steak and lobster restaurant on the High Street broke into an impromptu rendition of Jerusalem, brandishing wine glasses aloft.
Boat owners who had moored up in the town for the day cheered toasts from the riverbank. Tom Nicholson, a 35-year-old farmer from Surrey, had sailed his pleasure craft, Jarni, down the Thames and rigged the boat in Harry and Meghan bunting.
Dressed in a blue suit and straw boater and wobbling slightly on the foredeck, he admitted enjoying “a couple of jars” to celebrate the day.
The Prince of Harry (the pub formerly known as The Three Tuns, which was officially renamed last week) bore witness to some of the more raucous scenes of the evening.
Manager Kelly Carpenter estimated she had sold every one of the 2,500 plastic pint glasses specially ordered in. “We’ve had the whole world at our bar,” she said. “The past few days are like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
As closing time approached, Nicola Glimmerveen, 32, of nearby Sunningdale, her partner Simon Jones and friend Elizabeth Cartmell were still dancing in the courtyard outside the pub in Harry and Meghan cardboard cut-out masks, plus one of the Duke of Edinburgh they had found on the floor among plastic Union flags starting to curl at the edges.
Glimmerveen said her friend had a 5am flight to go on to a yoga retreat. The plan was to stay up until then.
As the night wore on, the tales among ardent Royalists grew taller. Joseph Darroch, a 61-year-old former colour sergeant in the Gordon Highlanders standing outside the Carpenter’s Arms, claimed over a gin and tonic that he danced the dashing white sergeant with the Queen herself at the Balmoral Ghillies Ball in 1988.
Janice Smith, 60, and Pauline Gardiner, 59, two midwives from Newcastle, were still going strong after a “fabulous day”, despite a 1.30am start. They had also been on the streets celebrating the nuptials of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011, and noticed how different the atmosphere felt this time.
“Both the Princes are lovely but this time around just feels much more informal,” said Smith. “It just shows you how times have changed.”
At 11pm, as a mammoth display of fireworks erupted from the castle, much of the town was already empty. Royal-watchers had retreated to their hotel rooms or begun their long journeys home across the globe.
By midnight, it even became quiet enough to hear the music thudding out over the Long Walk from Frogmore House, where the evening reception was taking place.
Their well-wishers may have proved a more sedate bunch, but the Windsors still know how to party.
‘It’s been amazing. I feel as if I am channelling my inner duchess’ KAREN OTIS