Reign on parade

Going ahead in its traditional form for the first time in two years, Trooping the Colour will be an event to remember – as will the much-missed Royal Cornwall Show, say Neil and Serena Cross

NDC

I have to say, I’m becoming ludicrously excited about attending HM The Queen’s Birthday Parade this year. After a couple of years’ absence, this one, marking as it does the Platinum Jubilee year, promises to be both moving and historically unprecedented. I first rode on the Birthday Parade during the Golden Jubilee celebrations of 2002 and hung up my spurs in 2010. Although everyone prays for sun on this special day, it is always a blessing for those on parade (especially the horses) when the day is slightly overcast with a cool breeze. Keeping the horses awake, standing up straight and fidget-free is a much easier task when there’s neither a hot sun beating down on them nor a stiff breeze under their tails from off the lake in St James’s Park. During the Golden Jubilee celebrations, there was the added drama of Zadok the Priest being blasted out of enormous speakers down the length of the Mall to focus the mind while steadying the horses. It was all too much for one errant drum horse, who broke a rein in the excitement and set off, rudderless, on his own parade.

This year, however, we will be watching from the stands before meandering across Green Park after the Royal Salute to raise a glass to Her Majesty and enjoy a long lunch at 127 Piccadilly. During my mounted days, I always eyed these lunchbound spectators in their morning dress with a degree of envy as we began the hot hack home to St John’s Wood, but now I am a member of that pedestrian group, I’d much rather be back on top, trotting through London with swords drawn and bands playing.

The joy of an extended Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend is that we are able to get back to the West Country for the rest of the weekend’s social action at our local pub’s beer festival. Requiring absolutely no stiff collars, this provides a wonderful contrast to Horse Guards Parade and the opportunity to sink pints with some of my favourite characters. After the Birthday Parade, we used to box up all the horses and head off on the county show circuit to perform the Musical Drive. This was a wonderful way to maintain fitness and driving skills as well as to give everyone a welcome change of scenery. Our county show promises to return with a bang this summer and I’m sure we’ll raise many more glasses to Her Majesty in the luncheon marquee.

SFC

There really is nothing quite like the county show. All life is here and it’s a highly colourful cavalcade where cattle are bathed and shampooed (sometimes more than their owners) and the smell of candyfloss somehow seems to permeate everywhere, even though the stall might remain mysteriously hidden from view behind the Ifor Williams stand.

The Royal Cornwall Show is the absolute highlight of the county’s summer social calendar. The start of the week has us praying for sun but invariably ending up by being cautious and donning about five layers because, as Mother says, ‘You can always take one off, dear.’ It is also usually freezing cold at 6am when we tend to arrive, but it can then suddenly become hotter than the Med in a surprisingly short period of time.

The showground at Wadebridge is always brimming over with a glorious array of stands, including the heady delights of the flower marquee, redolent of a hot house and festooned with amazing blooms. These are nurtured through their week to halt the inevitable wilting that is a side effect of a balmy summer show for not only the flowers but for the growers and judges, too, who must repair to the Pimm’s tent or seek shade beneath a mobile bar to halt the decline.

My favourite part of the day (apart from lunch in the CLA tent) is hanging out at Ring 2 and watching the hunters from early in the morning. These classes draw serious crowds to witness the gathering from far and wide of the cream of the equine crop. Polished to within an inch of their lives, these beautiful horses, anointed with the tang of fly-spray, make me long to be back in the ring too. Now our daughter is growing up fast and displaying an early fondness for horses, perhaps we can join the showing rings right from the start all over again.

In 2001, the show was postponed until September due to foot and mouth. Neil and I were both there, but while he was zooming around the ring with the King’s Troop and sleeping next to his horses in the cattle shed, I was being pushed around in a wheelchair, having managed to mangle myself in a nasty eventing fall the previous week. This year, neither of us is on duty and we will merrily don our straw hats and revel in everything the countryside does best, from blow-dried bullocks to extraordinary onions. We just cannot wait.