Lt Col JP Brooke - OP LONDON BRIDGE 2022

Lt Col (retd) J P Brooke

Operation LONDON BRIDGE

11 Nov 22

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died on the afternoon of Thursday 8 September 2022. My appointment as a Gentleman at Arms in the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms was in 2018, and even then we knew, because we rehearse it every year, that when the Queen died Op LONDON BRIDGE would be called and everyone would be required to report to St James’s Palace for duty within 24 hours of the announcement of the death. The balloon having gone up I was on the next train to London.

Operation LONDON BRIDGE is very detailed, well planned and properly rehearsed. People said after the event how polished and slick the whole thing was. This is because in good British military fashion there was a plan, everyone knew their place in it and everyone knew the intent. There was no need for any flashes of initiative and the whole thing really did go like clockwork. My own part in it was small but none the less a great honour.

First parade was on Sunday 11 September where we all marched into the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace and we swore our allegiance to the new King. Once that was done we could then get on with the job in hand. The following ten days leading up to the funeral on Monday 19 September were a solid pattern of sleep eat rehearse parade sleep eat rehearse parade etc and ad nauseam. My first duty was as a member of the “Preliminary Watch” in order to be present in Westminster Hall when the late Queen’s coffin arrived. I was one of six.

Following this my first vigil on the catafalque was from 18.00-23.59 on Wednesday 14 Sep 22. The vigils were mounted by a combination of Household Division Officers, Gentlemen at Arms and (always outside the inner ring of officers and holding the ground) the Yeomen of the Guard. These are the people that look like Beefeaters but are very much not, the Yeomen of the Guard having seen action whereas the Beefeaters have not. This is something that they are always at pains to explain.

There are only 28 Gentlemen at Arms but there are 300 men in the Royal Company of Archers, the sovereign’s Scottish Bodyguard and they did some of the vigils later on. My second vigil was from 06.00 on Thursday 15 September to midday following which my division (under the Lieutenant, or Commanding Officer of the Gentlemen at Arms) were on rehearsals for the main funeral at Westminster Abbey and then the interment of the late Queen’s body at Windsor. Fortunately I had a day off on Sunday 18 Sep 22 and slept and ate all the way through it.

The big day dawned on Monday 19 Sep 22. It was clear and bright and we were on parade early. My own day comprised what can only be described as two very glamorous but very long ‘stands’, in Westminster Abbey and later at St George’s Chapel at Windsor. As the King’s personal bodyguard we guard his presence on state occasions and as the King was to be present at the funeral we provided the ‘close in’ personal bodyguard to him. If you watch the footage on the BBC iPlayer you will notice that the only uniforms standing up and bearing arms close to the King at the funeral and at St George’s Chapel at Windsor apart from his own family are the Gentlemen at Arms carrying the axe and sword that are our usual weapons. We are easily distinguished as we wear helmets with the high plume of swan feathers. After the funeral at Westminster Abbey was over we were onto a bus and ‘blue lighted’ by motorcycle outriders to Windsor by the fastest route while the funeral cortege and the Royal hearse took the slow route down the A30 to Windsor. We were again on parade 40 minutes before Her Majesty the late Queen’s coffin arrived.

As is often the way with such big events it is difficult to remember much about it but the most vivid memory that I have strangely enough is marching off parade after the internment at St George’s Chapel and being ushered into the Deanery in Windsor Castle by a friendly looking cleric who later turned out to be the Dean of Windsor. We had tea and Victoria sponge in his lodgings and we then got back on the bus to London, the operation now complete. We left Windsor to the family and the final internment of the late Queen in the Chapel with her mother, father, sister and husband.

Life is about being in the right place at the right time, with the right luck and in the right order of dress and my being part of the King’s bodyguard for the funeral of the late Queen was the most extraordinary honour and privilege, easily the greatest of my life (save for marrying Diana). We now look forward to the coronation of King Charles III in June 2023.

JPB