“Trooping the Colour: Memories of a Young Lieutenant” by Kevin Harper – An Englishman Downunder As the Trooping of the Colour returns this week to Horse Guards Parade in London, I find myself recalling, with a mix of pride and poignancy, my first time in attendance—not as a tourist or television viewer, but as a serving officer. The year was 1982. I was a young Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps, newly pressed and marching tall. My mother and father were with me that day, seated among the guests, beaming. I remember glancing toward them just before the parade began and seeing something in their faces—love, yes, and pride—but also a quiet knowing that their son was now part of something older and greater than any one generation. Trooping the Colour is not merely ceremony. It is an inheritance. In those days, Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II would still take the salute on horseback, astride the ever-faithful Burmese. The music swelled, the regiments moved with clockwork ...
Kevin writes from the perspective of being an Englishmen in rural Australia. His interests and activities include - but are not limited to - health - Integrative Medicine including LLLT/PBM, inclusive theology, liturgical music and choral direction, writing (fiction, poetry and opinion pieces) and the local rural community.