With a successful book launch in association with Terrence Higgins Trust, and resounding support from Stephen Fry, it seems James Wharton has a lot to be smiling about this week. His superb book Out in the Army tells of the triumphs and traumas of his life as a gay soldier. With that in mind, here’s one of those moments taken from the book.
The Greatest Day
Doncaster, the horse entrusted to carry me on this great occasion,looks up. I want to look up, too, but I know it’s more than my job’s worth. Everywhere around me thousands of people are waiting for a glimpse of the newlyweds – even me, the lucky boy who has the honour of taking part in their big day. This is the event of the year (of several years): the royal wedding, the wedding of a future king. Millions of people on the streets and around the world are focusing on this very moment and I can’t help but fantasise that they’re looking at me!
I am turned out immaculately, my boots polished to within an inch of their lives, my scarlet red plume hanging beautifully off the top of my helmet, the strands waving past my eyes in the slight breeze. Doncaster and I have been checked and re-checked throughout the morning, yet I’m still nervous. This day is the highlight of my life – a day I never thought I’d see.
I say this because it has been a long journey – a journey that could have ended several times.
Waiting for the prince and his new wife, the now Duchess of Cambridge, seems to last a lifetime. I’ve been sat patiently, still as possible, for almost an hour, listening to the words of the Archbishop from inside the abbey through the large speakers assembled outside for the world to listen; listening to the cheers of support from all over the capital. What did my family make of it all? What about the school kids who’d often put me down as a child? What about the teachers who had spent so much time and energy on my education? Were they watching? Had they seen what had become of that young boy from North Wales, sat in full state regalia atop a beautiful large black horse? Another hymn begins inside the abbey – and outside too – led by the very lady I’m sat here waiting for: Her Majesty. She is my one concern, the one person I am here to look after.
My sword arm begins to ache as Doncaster entertains himself with the apparatus in his mouth, rattling and jingling. I’m desperate to look around. I wonder whether the nice American family I spoke with yesterday during rehearsals are enjoying the occasion. They’d told me how supportive they were of the two princes and how they’d last travelled to the UK to see ‘the funeral in 1997’. My memory drifts back to that occasion and the sorrow that filled our household following her death. An innocent tenyear-old boy sat with his mother and older sister, witnessing the events with confusion and sadness.
In the space of fifteen years I’ve come from the Welsh countryside to the heart of royal pageantry in London at the wedding of one of those two young boys the world cried over. I feel my own eyes dampen slightly and quickly pull myself together: this next hour is the pinnacle of my military career and I need to fully concentrate. I need to ride with certainty and commitment; getting here wasn’t easy and I know that today will be the beginning of the end of my incredible journey as a soldier in the British Army.
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