On a sunny, shining and beautiful Monday morning on the 23rd of June City Academy Whitehawk’s year 6 children arrived at the school to go on a once in a lifetime trip. I felt as excited as if it was my birthday. As it turned 8am we got on the coach and started our journey to Buckingham palace. Every second and every moment I knew it was only a few moments away.
We arrived at the Royal Mews I felt like I was in a dream. Walking over stones, we met Michael Hutchinson, the equerry of the Duke of York, you would be really lucky to meet him. I was amazed at what was happening. When he finished talking about what we were going to do throughout the day we got into our groups and followed him to the palace where we could see millions of tourists, students and visitors waiting outside the gates for the changing of the guards ceremony to begin. As people were watching us I felt like celebrity.
As the gates opened my jaw dropped and I was gob-smacked at what I could see. As we walked on the Queen’s forecourt we stood in a line and stood easy. Standing on the grounds watching the changing of the guards, we saw that the Queen’s Guards were changing into the Royal Marines. Suddenly the band started to play Indiana Jones music and the Imperial March from the famous film Star Wars. I was shocked that no guards were out of time. I was amazed after.
After the changing of the guards ceremony we met one of the Royal Marines. We got into a circle and we all got to hold the rifle (a gun) that he Royal Marines would use if somebody tried to get into Buckingham palace. I felt shocked that they would use that. As the day went on, we went to St. James Park to eat our scrumptious lunch. We all sat down and talked about our day. As we were at St. James Park some of us went to the waterfall mountain and got a little bit wet.
After that we saw the Queen’s wonderful, outstanding and amazing cars. She had Bentley and Rolls Royce that had a lovely blue carpet and the seats were made out of leather. As well as looking round the cars we met the chauffeur of the Queen, if you don’t know what that is it is the Queen’s driver. Barry was his name. He got us to stand in line and luckily we got to hold the mascot which is the lion. I wished someday I could have a car like that, it would be amazing. At the end of the tour of the Queen’s cars Barry gave us a toy dog corgi to look after and we called it Dookie like the Queen’s dog.
After we finished with Barry we stood outside and suddenly we heard trotting like a horse I got very excited because I like horses. We saw the head groomsman and he brought out a horse called Belfast (He was a Cleveland bay). Belfast was the main horse that rode the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to special celebrations like the Diamond Jubilee, the Coronation and Kate and William’s marriage. After that we went and looked at some stables and met two more horses called Lexington and Concord that are also Cleveland bays. After we met another horse that was called storm and she was a Windsor grey colour. If I was a horse I would want to be that colour.
As it came to the last thing of our tour we saw all of the Queen’s carriages. The first carriage we saw was the Diamond Jubilee carriage it was black and gold. The Jubilee carriage represented England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland with the following pictures. The rose represented England, the leek represented whales the thistle represented Scotland and the harp represented Ireland. The last carriage we saw was the George the first carriage that weighed the same as an elephant. Secretly a magic door was built like a wall so the carriage that is on display right now can get out. It would take at least one day to get the carriage out of the Royal Mews.
When it came to the end of the day we got to go to the gift shop and brought a souvenir to remember Buckingham Palace. As we said goodbye we left London we knew this had been a once in a life time trip. This would never have happened if Amanda Thirsk (The Duke of York’s private secretary) hadn’t invited us. This really was wonderful, amazing, and outstanding and the best trip I have ever had.
