A heroes’ welcome
Tens of thousands pour on to the streets of London to greet England’s triumphant team. Ben Fenton reports
GOODNESS only knows what Holly Flintoff made of it all.
Here was her dad, a bit unsteady on his feet and smelling strongly of that fi zzy stuff that all his friends were spraying everywhere, holding her as tightly as a sharp slip catch while they rumbled along at the front of this big, red bus with no roof on.
And who were all those people down there? All those people.
Having had her fi rst birthday only last week, Holly doesn’t know what a Lord Mayor is but there was one dressed in full regalia, shaking hands with her beaming dad and ushering his mates, who aren’t usually dressed in blazers, on to the bus.
And off she went, in pride of place next to a big shiny trophy, looking down on a stream of happy people, their smiling faces turned upwards in the sunshine, cheering and clapping Holly’s dad.
There were bankers standing on the fourthfl oor windowsills of the City and office workers crowding six-deep on the pavements of Mansion House Street.
Holly watched people hanging off lampposts and traffic lights, crammed on to plant stands and the plinths of statues, all cheering in a rolling thunder of appreciation as the bus edged along Cannon Street.
Passing St Paul’s, the choristers packed on to a side balcony waved their England flags as if trying to achieve take-off and the great steps of the grand cathedral were heaving with cricket fans.
Holly’s dad’s friend Michael kept waving this little brown pot at people down below and, each time he did so, they just went mad and screamed and clapped their hands.
Court clerks lined the pavement as they inched past the Old Bailey.
A woman running in heels up a side street called to a friend up ahead to ask what the crowds were for. “Is it the Queen? It must be,” she cried.
“No, it’s the cricketers,” her friend replied.
With Holly’s mother watching nervously in case Dad passed his baby to his friend Kevin with the funny, stripy hair, who has a reputation for dropping important catches, the bus crossed Ludgate Circus.
There are no journalists left there now but, as Holly went up Fleet Street, it seemed as if half the nation’s press corps (as well as a couple of sheepish Australian TV crews)
were either on the bus with her or running alongside.
Passing the Royal Courts, eminent libel QCs and the odd pinstriped judge waved plastic flags of St George with the same zeal as the rest of the crush as Holly went past.
Balloons were floating past her nose and more of that fi zzy stuff flooded over the grinning, upturned faces of all those people.
Her dad was still stunned, staring out in front, but almost everyone else on board noticed that, as they went behind the Aldwych, they were passing Australia House, which was seen by most as a good excuse for another drink as well as a rousing salute to the humbled enemy.
Holly rolled into the Strand on her bus, gazing down on a top-hatted doorman, a chef and a bunch of waiters outside the Savoy.
An inflatable Dalek wearing the message: “ Aussies exterminated” joined the bus just outside Charing Cross station.
A woman with tin-foil in her hair broke off from having her highlights done to come to the window of the hairdressers to see what all the fuss was about.
Then Holly found herself coming round the side of another big church, St Martin-intheand into a huge square with a big column in the middle of it and a statue stuck on top.
If she thought she had seen lots of people so far, then this was something else.
Trafalgar Square was packed to the furthest boundary.
Twice as many people as saw Holly’s dad and the rest draw the match that ensured the Ashes were won were there to sing, shout and dance in fountains. Never mind it was a working Tuesday.
A class of children from Sir John Cass primary school, Aldgate, were waving their flags for all they were worth.
One of the teachers with them was possibly the unhappiest man on the entire route of the parade.
“This is killing me but they forced me to come,” said Danny O’Toole, 25. “I’m in pain.”
You see, Mr O’Toole is from Brisbane. Australia.
“ And it seems like a long way off at the moment,” Mr O’Toole said, his voice lost in the sound of celebration as Holly Flintoff and her dad swept past. bfenton@telegraph.co. uk