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Trooping the Colour Trooping the Colour: 6 life lessons you can learn from the drill square From the importance of time-keeping to the best methods for shining boots, former Guardsman Andrew Critchlow outlines the essential lessons to be learned from military parades It’s silly season in London for the Brigade of Guards. A time of year that consists almost entirely of buffing of boots, arduous rehearsals of pageantry, and drill square parades. No parade is more spectacular, or requires such attention to detail, as the Trooping the Colour. The ceremony, which marks the Queen's official birthday and is steeped in British military history, is the high point of the year for Guardsmen, who march on Horse Guards Parade in front of the Royal family, public spectators, and millions of TV viewers. Often dismissed as a military anachronism that Britain’s under-funded Army struggles to maintain, such parades perform a vital function. In terms of discipline, they set the British soldier apart from any other foreign army. They also serve as a proving ground for life. At a time when many school leavers are considering their options ahead of university and the now inevitable £30,000 of debt which accompanies a higher education, I am thankful that I chose a different path to a degree. Joining the Grenadier Guards at the age of 18 gave me many of the basic life skills that have helped me to navigate my way through university, financial journalism and the world in general. Some of the lessons I learned were mundane, others profound, but all have remained with me as the years have passed. Here are six basic lessons for life that I learnt on the drill square: 1. Attention to detail Looking smart is an essential skill for any young person to learn if they want to be taken seriously in the workplace. In the Guards, your attention to detail is easily measured by the shine on your boots. Quite simply, they have to be impossibly shiny. Well-polished boots are treated with almost mythical reverence and Guardsmen will spend years building up layers of polish and wax to achieve the legendary gloss finish. Such is the thoroughness of the job that Guardsmen are even expected to shine the soles of their boots. Although polishing shoes sounds like a very basic skill, it surprises me to this day how many people get it wrong. The technique we used consisted of four steps that you had to follow to get the requisite mirror-like shine: i. Get a tub of Kiwi Parade Gloss boot polish. Instant rub-on stuff in a sponge-topped bottle won’t do. ii. Clean the shoes thoroughly before adding the polish. iii. Scrape a teaspoon of the polish into the lid of the container and light it with a match. This will burn off the paraffin, which you want to get rid of as it will rot the leather. iv. Build up at least two layers of Kiwi before you begin to polish. I can’t promise that having the shiniest shoes in the office will get you a promotion – but it certainly won’t hurt. 2. Team work Trooping the Colour is one of the world’s most complex military parades. Hundreds of men and horses are crowded onto a relatively small area opposite St James’s Park in central London and without close teamwork the entire enterprise could easily descend into chaos. Each Guardsman must learn to instinctively trust the man next to him and respond immediately to verbal orders. Turn right when you should have turned left and you will be spending a night locked in the guardroom in Wellington Barracks. These are the same basic principles that have bound all British soldiers together since the Battle of Sedgemoor through to fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Prove to your colleagues in the workplace that you are a team player and it will help you achieve your goals. 3. Grin and bear it Everyone has seen the television pictures of some poor Guardsman who, with an air of inevitability, fainted on Horse Guards Parade. From experience, I can tell you that every man involved in the parade at some point in the ordeal feels they will topple over. Trooping the Colour invariably happens on a hot day in early summer – and the uniform alone is enough to make even the strongest man visibly wilt. The standard bearskin cap made from the real hide of a Canadian bear stands 18 inches tall and weighs almost two pounds. The skin is wrapped around a cane frame that is attached to a rigid leather band upon which the cap rests in place on a Guardsman’s head. After three hours stood on parade, the bearskin feels like it weighs several kilos and is clamped around your head like a vice. The urge to take it off is overwhelming and requires an almost yogic level of concentration to resist. Sometimes in life, you just have to smile in the face of adversity and carry on. 4. Timing and precision The tradition of the Grenadier Guards is to turn up five minutes before every parade. Punctuality and precise adherence to timing is at the centre of all British military operations and doctrine. In the British Army, parades will often involve an officer pacing out the minutes in front of assembled troops in a ritual that harks back to an era when the control of large bodies of men on a battle field was coordinated by time and not radio communications. The tradition was also introduced hundreds of years ago as practical way for the officer of day to demonstrate to his men that he was sober by walking in a straight line. Whether you are 30 seconds late or completely forget to turn up for the meeting with a hangover is irrelevant: turn up on time and clients, colleagues and superiors will respect you for it. 5. Fake it till you make it Whether it is covering up the mother of all hangovers in the office, or breezing your way through a job interview that you neglected to prepare for, if you do it with confidence the chances are that you will prevail. There is no better school for this essential skill in modern life than the drill square. Every parade in the Guards is preceded by an arduous inspection where officers and far more frightening Sergeant Majors will inspect every detail of your uniform and general appearance. Fail in this test due to a speck of dust and the punishments can be as Victorian as the Guards' famous uniforms. From day one you learn that if you act with confidence you will thrive whatever the circumstances. 6. Pride There are few things that can compare to the sights and sounds of the massed bands of the Guards leading the lines of guardsmen off Horse Guards Parade and onto the Mall. Close your eyes and for a brief moment and you are transported to another time, marching over the hillside at Waterloo in 1815, drums beating behind the Duke of Wellington towards a final showdown with Napoleon’s Imperial Guard. It was the defeat of Napoleon’s crack infantry troops on the road to Belle Alliance that eventually saw the Guards awarded the right to wear their famous bearskins in honour of the victory. Taking pride in your own achievements is a beautiful thing. .
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