On the 4th June Bob Colvin and I set off from my place and made our way to the London Motorcycle Museum at Greenford. We had been invited to take part in the Golden Jubilee parade with forty-eight other guys on British bikes, one for every year of the Queens reign. On arriving at the museum we were asked to park in the back car park and go through what was the first of three security checks during the day. Our better halves had come with us and over a cup of tea and a bacon roll we looked over the other 48 bikes.
At 12:30 we all rode down to Hyde Park Corner where we stopped for another security check and were then given a police escort around Marble Arch down Park Lane through Parliament Square and then onto Horse Guards Parade. Thousands had gathered in Parliament Square and as we turned into it a roar wnt up from the flag-waving crowd. It was an amazing sight and we hadnt even been in the parade yet.
Horse Guards Parade was filled with all kinds of carnival floats and loads of British cars. Our part in the parade wasn't until 4-ish so we had plenty of time to kill and spent some time looking at some of the cars. Sue and Rose set upon a young policeman and they both insisted he frisked them with his strangely shaped metal detector. I'm sure they were both checked at least three times each.
The time had come for us to take our place in the parade. We all queued up on both sides of the floats and cars and went tearing up to the front of the parade where we formed about three or four lines of bikes across the road. We had stopped about 200 yards away from the Queen who was sitting with her family at the Victoria memorial at the end of The Mall. We could hardly hear the noise of the bikes for the cheers of the crowd. To both sides of us there was a sea of Union Jacks and smiling faces. We then all charged up to the Queen, stopped right in front of her and then carried on around the monument and away to the left of Buckingham Palace. It was a great day and one we will never forget. We're still waiting for our O.B.E's to come through the post!