Trooping the Colour: Why the royal event was the late Queen's favourite
6/6/202612 min
In this episode of Royal T: A Quick Cuppa, Associate Editor Camilla Tominey and The Telegraph’s Royal Editor, Hannah Furness, delve into the rich history, pomp, and pageantry of Trooping the Colour—historically celebrated as the late Queen Elizabeth II's favorite royal event.
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Producer: Emma Williams and Georgia Coan
Senior Producer: John Cadigan
Executive Producer: Charlotte Seligman
Video Producer: Will Walters
Studio Operator: Meghan Searle
Editor: Camilla Tominey
Highlights
- How the Sovereign's Birthday Parade maintains its strict, centuries-old traditions as a practical tribute to the British Armed Forces.
- How the Royal Family's balcony appearance for the flypast serves as the ultimate indicator of who is "in" and who is "out" of the royal fold.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsHannah Furness· Host0:00
[upbeat music] The Telegraph.
Camilla Tominey· Host0:05
Welcome to The Royal Tea, a quick cuppa, a brand-new podcast serving up the very best royal insight from the experts in the know. That's us, me, Camilla Tominey.
Hannah Furness· Host0:16
And me, Hannah Furness, the Telegraph's royal editor.
Camilla Tominey· Host0:19
And ahead of Trooping the Colour, we'll be delving into the pomp and pageantry of the late Queen's favorite royal event. [upbeat music] Hannah, um, I've got a confession to make. [laughs] In all of the years that I was covering the royal family, I never quite worked out what Trooping the Colour was all about. It had something to do with a flag.
Hannah Furness· Host0:46
S- It had something to do with a regiment.
Camilla Tominey· Host0:48
It's something to do with carriages- [laughs] ... and things.
Hannah Furness· Host0:51
Easy to do.
Camilla Tominey· Host0:51
Horse Guards Parade.
Hannah Furness· Host0:53
All of that effort, all of that pomp and pageantry, and all we write about is the balcony.
Camilla Tominey· Host0:57
Well, basically, it was like who's in a carriage, who's wearing what, and if ... And we were lip-reading balcony appearances. Oh, and obsessing over the flypast.
Hannah Furness· Host1:05
The flypast. But it is a massively significant royal event. The British Armed Forces train for ages for this. It's a huge moment for everybody involved. It goes back to Charles II, where if you think about our troops assembling on foot or on horseback, they had a flag, which is called the color, and it would literally be trooped up and down in front of the men with their muskets or their pikes and their swords so they know what it looked like.