Welcome Back to Cavalry Sunday
Families, friends, old comrades and serving officers met again for the 98th Anniversary of the combined cavalry parade and memorial service on the 8th May in Hyde Park
After a two-year gap, it was great to see so many of this special group gathered together. Supported by generations of families as well, it made a really memorable day. Toddlers in push chairs wearing officers caps, a bowler-hatted child on a tiny bike, a photographer instructing “Try to look as crotchety as possible dad” and a stream of the most elegant dark suits, bowler hats and ladies in wonderful dresses all gathered on Hyde Park’s Broad Walk.
It was a perfect May Sunday, the sun shone from a blue sky but was not too hot, fresh foliage fluttering on the plane trees (perhaps setting off some sneezing and coughing) and bands and pipers warmed up in all directions.
Three bands led the marching with HRH Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, taking the salute standing on a beautifully decorated flowery base thanks to our own Parks nursery staff.
A service took place from the bandstand, surrounded by hundreds of uniformed soldiers with other supporters joining in and us all singing hymns accompanied by the bands and respecting a two-minute silence.
A very uplifting morning which, I hope, was followed by some really good lunches for all those taking part after such a long gap. And about this time next year I would thoroughly recommend a walk into that area at about 10.30 am to join in with this notable event.
APRIL 20th ON THE PARADE GROUND
After reporting such a wonderful occasion, it’s depressing to write about this most unwelcome illegal event when cannabis smokers gather.
Long-standing members will know about this annual trial inflicted on Hyde Park. Hyde Park manager, Jason Taylor, gave me some feedback and I’m going to concentrate on the response by The Royal Parks (TRP) teams.
Jason’s main message was to highlight how well the OCS (ground staff’s) team coped. And how positive they’d been about getting The Parade Ground back into top condition as quickly as possible, and certainly by 10am the next morning. Everything has to be returned to pristine condition for the Queen’s birthday gun salute to take place on the same site at noon on the 21st. This includes removing all the remnants of glass and small metal sniffing canisters.
All options have been considered including closing the park entirely for a day, but this arrangement would exclude thousands of perfectly proper park visitors. Parks concessions would lose a whole day’s business and there is a possibility that the gathering would move to Kensington Gardens.
This year there were around 7,500 there, down from previous years which have been, on occasion, more than 15,000. Approximately 250 police attended and through the day they issued on the spot fines, seized goods and made arrests. They issued a dispersal order at 8pm.and the area was mostly cleared by 9pm. Further arrests continued outside the park.
During the day, the wooded areas and shrubs as well as the children’s education centre garden at the LookOut were used as toilets despite the latter being fenced off.
Huge amounts of litter were left on the ground and at 5am the next morning around 40 helpers started to clear the mess. OCS teams from Green and St James’s Parks and Kensington Gardens helped the Hyde Park team to prepare for the salute at noon and the security sweep at 10am. The ground was cleared by 9am and the rest of the park by lunchtime. The teamwork was impressive. Jason estimates the clean-up took 300 man hours.
This year, a litter collecting device linked to a tractor was hired and did the work of about 3 to 4 people. But glass and small metal canisters had to be cleared by hand. On the day, an extra six tons of litter was left in the park.
The teamwork and results were really very impressive and our thanks go to all those people who annually have to deal with this horrible mess, which is just dumped on a perfect green sward.
THE ROSE GARDEN “MOTORWAY” ……the story continues.
In the winter, I took a photo and wrote about a swathe of cleared earth in the rose garden area destined, I learned, for some wildflower and more natural planting.
I’ve followed its progress as has, of course, Phil Newcombe who is HP’s horticulture expert. This has been the source of some anxiety. Squirrels and pigeons caused a lot of damage to the planting mix over the winter, and I thought that almost everything had either been eaten, partly chewed or dug up and thrown about.
However, a brave selection had survived, though looking a little thin. More bulbs followed making a colourful display, and the motorway is now entirely green with an insect attractive green plant. Plans to continue and develop are afoot.
The bulbs, anemone, botanical tulips, botanical narcissus, muscadine and pushkinia survived. The squirrels got the crocus. Some bulking up by hand of successful bulbs will take place in the Autumn.
For the summer, 25 different perennial wildflowers have been sown including oxeye daisy. These are slow to establish so 9 different annual wildflowers have been added including cornflower, common poppy and corncockle.
We look forward to some good new photos to add to this story, so do send some good ones (high res please) of this latest part of the planting story.
A FLOWERY EVENING IN THE NURSERY
On Wednesday 11th May the rain lashed down all day and it was COLD. However, at 6pm on the dot, the sun came out in time for a group of members to start their tour thanks to new nursery manager Rob Dowling. Rob took over in February and has made a difference to the football pitch sized Hyde Park super nursery already.
He managed rather a large number of us on a snaking route through the different climate-controlled areas and coped with a great variety of questions and comments from a very involved group.
Corners of the nursery look like something out of Chelsea Flower Show. Tree ferns have come out of hiding and are dotted about all over the place attached to any nearby supports to stop them blowing over.
Carol Joseph – Trustee & volunteer
Members and trustees who volunteer in the nursery were there too and seem to enjoy helping in this tucked away world. More have come forward though, I hasten to add, not for half a million flower pot washing duties.
We ended with Pimms and canapés. The sun still shone and as the going home present was a very tall Buckingham Palace geranium, everyone seemed to be very happy as they wended their ways.
Thank you Rob, it was a memorable evening.
*Butterfly and Moth Spotting Walk in Hyde Park
15th June at 13:0*
Accompanied by Dave Jordan, Assistant Park Manager and May Webber from Royal Parks Mission Invertebrate scheme. The event is for a small group, so members need to book early.
SOLVE THE MYSTERY
Our last newsletter featured a mystery photo. No member of staff knew what it was, though assistant Hyde Park Manager, Dave Jordan, guessed it might be something to do with Imperial College. I was way off the mark when I thought it was an RCA sculpture of Herons’ Heads.
Many thanks to members Joe Ogden, and Duncan and Annette Campbell:
Joe says quite succinctly “The…. contraption is a research project by Imperial students as part of their degree. It’s sampling the air behaviour at different levels”.
Duncan and Annette told us that they came across the Imperial College physics students lugging it back to college to make adjustments as it wasn’t doing what it should which was to measure wind speeds at different levels. Thank you all.
CREATIVE CONFINEMENT
Founding member Neill Mitchell, has written a 570 page novel, “Hitler’s Ambassador”. The genre is historical fiction and features Hyde Park and Rotten Row at various points in the plot. The book was first published in the USA but is now on sale at Amazon Books UK at £10.70 including postage.
An impressive use of lockdowns and I wish success for the book.
OUR PHOTOGRAPHER
Many members have met our accredited photographer, Paul Shelley, and those who haven’t will have enjoyed his wonderful photographs in our newsletters, our Annual Review and also in SEBRA magazine.
An impressive use of lockdowns and I wish success for the book.
He wrote and added his own pictures to an account on a winter afternoon of a long walk in the parks. He noticed sculpture in all those winter plants, trees and branches ending with the lamps being lit against a darkening sky. He admitted to feeling melancholy and several of you commented on this. He had left his darling wife Valerie in UCH for an extra long session of chemotherapy.
Sadly the treatment did not work and Val died peacefully, without pain in a hospice on the 29th April.
I’m writing this on behalf of you all, to let him know how sorry we all are, how much we appreciate him and everything he’s done for us and that he and the rest of his lovely family are all in our thoughts.
Valerie was also a life member and loved trees in particular, coming along to several of Greg’s tree walks. In her last days, her bed was pushed out into a parkland garden so she could hear the birds and enjoy the new leaves on the trees.
WE’VE GOT PHOTOGRAPHERS
And thank you to them all for their talented contributions to this edition of the newsletter:
Rob Dowling
Paul Shelley
Nick Abalov
Phil Newcombe
Sue Price
Jason Taylor
