Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier (8 page)

Our ‘passing-out parade’ wasn’t due until the Thursday and, again, many members of my family were making the trip from Wales to see such an occasion. The deal from the riding staff was that if we turned out to the standard required for the escort on the Tuesday, we would all certainly pass out on the Thursday, in front of our families. However, if any of us were not at a suitable standard to escort the Queen and the Italian Prime Minister, we would fail the course and have to do the whole thing all over again. That would have been a catastrophe.

Our first insight into the many hours and days of preparations London’s soldiers put in to making a royal escort as amazing as they are known to be was a huge eye-opener, waking us up to the realities of the job we were about to be proficient in.

On the Monday morning, the entire regiment was to rehearse the parade in full at 4.30 a.m., meaning we had to be at the stables at 1.30 a.m. to wake the horses, feed and groom them, and then carefully fit their saddles and furniture, before running upstairs to our changing rooms and placing all our clean kit on. Following all of this, we would collect our mounts and make our way on to the square to await the colonel’s personal inspection. The whole process took hours.

Faulkner, who’d taken it upon himself to look after me a bit, taught me the previous day that because it was still going to be pitch-black at that time of the morning, I didn’t really need to clean my kit properly. I wondered about this advice for some time and decided to follow it, quite unsure if it was true or not. To be fair, the advice went in the face of all we’d learned throughout the winter months of our training.

At 3 a.m., when I pitched up with my horse on that dark Knightsbridge parade square, I found that his advice was fully
correct. We all, the horses included, looked dazzling. The
artificial
light that was beaming on us from the front and back made us look brilliant. Even the dullest of shines on a jack boot was magnified by the floodlighting.

The colonel started his inspection, during which he would speak to every man on the parade while checking the
cleanliness
of his horse and kit. This would take about fifty minutes, something we were all fully aware of as it had been published on orders the previous evening. The older lads, I found, would take this figure as sometimes an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, and divide it by the number of men on parade. For example, Faulkner would say that there were fifty minutes to inspect 220 men so that was just over twenty-two seconds to inspect each man. The lads would, as would I, soon come to depend on this formula to determine how much effort needed to be put into the kit cleaning prior to going on parade.

The colonel stood in front of me as I was introduced by the orderly corporal.

‘Trooper Wharton, colonel. He’s still in kit ride.’

The colonel’s eyes lit up and he threw a jolly greeting at me.

‘Trooper Wharton, welcome to the regiment!’ He was extremely cheerful for 3.30 in the morning. He patted my horse and continued on to the next guy.

About thirty minutes later, the regimental corporal major (or RCM) shouted to us all to wake up and prepare to move off. After a little more ceremony we headed out of the ceremonial gate, right onto South Carriage Drive and eventually onwards to Buckingham Palace and down the Mall. At the bottom of the Mall, which was lined with Irish Guards and other service personnel, we formed up on Horse Guards Parade, facing a stage that was not quite yet completed. The Italian-themed decor was still being assembled. At about 4.30 a.m., the sun slowly started
to appear from beyond the many buildings that made up the Whitehall skyline.

Many men, all fairly overweight, wandered around the
assembled
troops, pointing their sticks and telling people off for not standing still enough or for nodding off while sat on their horses. Without warning, the massed band fired up and started playing the national anthem. We all carried our swords while the
officers
performed a royal salute. A beautiful black Bentley pulled up right next to the steps of the half-constructed stage and a few royal imposters got out. The band finished and we all returned our swords to the slope, the blade just resting on the front of my shoulder. Soon another saloon, followed by a number of
brand-new
silver Mercedes minibus vans, entered Horse Guards from behind us and made their way to the stage. Once opposite the stage and the pretend Queen, a group of men exited the car and slowly climbed the few steps onto the platform. Only when they were all on the stage and stood next to the ‘Queen’ did the band play the Italian national anthem.

All the vehicles had disappeared and soon they were replaced by a few, very regal, carriages of state that would take the royal party and our Italian guests up the Mall and into the palace, with us providing a full military escort as they went.

Before I knew it, I was forcing myself into my saddle, trying desperately not to fall off with the pace we were travelling at as we accompanied the carriages along the Mall. It was here I, and every mounted soldier, learned to sit deep and consider the
long-lasting
effects of being ‘binned’ on the Mall. The empty saddles club was one organisation I didn’t want to be a part of.

We made it to Buckingham Palace and formed up quickly, carrying our swords as the carriages drove into the centre section of the great building, which is hidden from view. There wasn’t much left to do now, but the garrison sergeant major (or GSM),
a huge Welshman called Billy Mott, was unhappy with how we’d formed up and accused us of looking sloppy. He demanded we go around the birthday cake, named so because of its grand
appearance
and resemblance to a giant cake, and try again.

Before long we were heading up Constitution Hill and making our way slowly back to Hyde Park barracks. It was now about 5.30 a.m. and the boys were already talking about knocking off and re-cleaning all their kit, which wouldn’t be the case for me. Me and the other kit ride boys were to be back on top of our horses at 10.30 to rehearse our passing-out parade for the Thursday morning.

By the time I was back on top, I could barely keep my eyes open and had to resort to eating packets of Pro Plus, topping up their effect with cup after cup of espresso from the on-camp shop. The riding staff, renowned for being extremely
unreasonable
, screamed at us for hours for not getting things right. Of course we were making mistakes; we’d had next to no sleep for the best part of a month. Eventually, at lunch time, they released us to go away and prepare for the following morning’s inspection.

By the time I was sat on my horse for the Italian state visit the following morning, I’d been awake for a ridiculous
thirty-five
hours. Because Agincourt was such a sweaty horse I had spent hours cleaning his reins and saddle, washing his coat, combing his mane, sponging his face and shampooing his white sock. Endless hours. Then I had to clean my personal kit. And at the same time, I had to stop to answer everybody’s questions about my sexuality and put up with the banter that was now accompanying those questions. Sleep just didn’t come into it but we all carried on regardless.

At 11 a.m. we sat and watched the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Berlusconi, arrive at the now perfectly assembled stage on which the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were stood. They
exchanged a few initial pleasantries and were soon whisked away along the Mall, as we’d rehearsed the previous morning. The whole thing passed by excellently. They always did. Even though I felt paralysed by fatigue on that first occasion, I’d go on to ride in many escorts in the future, and each time I did, they would become easier and easier. But on that first occasion, boy, did I worry about the job I’d decided to commit myself to.

As promised, all of us went on to pass out in front of our families on the Thursday morning. It was a wondrous occasion, one that my nan travelled from Liverpool to witness first-hand. Personally, I don’t remember much about the day, I was far too close to the edge of exhaustion to take anything in, but the pictures looked great.

After passing out, we were given seventy-two hours off. Time off in Knightsbridge is never given in days. There is just too little of it. I returned to North Wales with my folks and did nothing but sleep throughout the entire period. My body was exhausted.

During the three days back home I considered telling my mum about my recent announcement in London, but every time I built up the courage to tell her I’d lose my bottle and think better of it. By the end of the weekend I’d concluded that she just didn’t need to know yet. So I left it.

Becoming a member of the Household Cavalry had taken seven months of constant attention since starting out at drill ride in September. It’s incredible how much we’d all grown in that time, even Jamie, who was already in his mid-twenties. The training had taken us all from fresh-faced, newly trained soldiers to gentlemen of the Household Cavalry, ready to take on the ancient role of escorting the Sovereign, carrying ourselves smartly and with meaning. I can’t think of a finer finishing school to my youth, nor a better group of people to endure the hardship with.

A
fter passing out of kit ride in the April, I began to settle into my job as a mounted dutyman to Her Majesty the Queen, and soon became quite good at it, too. Once I’d figured out how to balance my work and social life, I found Knightsbridge a rather exciting place to be.

Every morning, and without fail, I’d be in work for 6 a.m. I’d be riding through the streets of Chelsea or Paddington by seven and back in for breakfast by 8.30. Once all this was done and if I wasn’t on guard, I simply had to help out in the stable yard until noon, at which point we’d break down to skeleton crew and finish for the day. The crews that worked the afternoons would always be two lads that were in trouble for some reason or another, usually for being late in the mornings. If you were just five minutes late, you’d immediately lose your afternoon off. There were always people late and they were usually the same faces. Being a punctual guy, most afternoons I’d spend an hour cleaning kit, just so I’d always be ready or near enough ready if a fast ball came, which they often did; then I’d spend the afternoon out of base.

Since coming out, I had a great urge to explore the new-found freedom I’d afforded myself. I spoke at length with Jamie,
seeking
his invaluable advice, and he encouraged me to head out and
attempt to make some friends. A Londoner himself, he told me where to find gay bars and gay guys in and around the capital. I plucked up some courage and went out into the unknown.

Venturing just a few stops on the tube and a short walk away, I spent a very nervous afternoon popping in and out of the shops and bars of Soho. I must have looked very wide-eyed to
passers-by
as I uncertainly walked through the door of my first ever gay bar, a weathered-looking pub called the Duke of Wellington. It was about 2.30 in the afternoon and about ten to fifteen men sat on the tables and benches. I quietly ordered a pint of lager and sat myself in the corner glancing through a scene magazine while I felt the glares of the men look over me. It’s a sight I’ve now seen many times: a young, fresh-faced man, pretending to look occupied with a magazine or, nowadays, his mobile phone, trying to ignore the men that are eyeing him up. I was terrified to make eye contact with anybody but, despite my anxiety, I still felt exhilaration. For the first time ever I was spending time focusing on nothing but my sexuality. I loved it.

I finished my first drink fairly quickly and as I waited at the bar for the barman to pour me another, a young mixed-race lad started a conversation with me. Although fairly useless at general chit-chat – I had no experience, after all – I somehow held his interest long enough for him to want to pay for my drink. He followed me to my table and we carried on chatting at length; he asked me questions and I answered them. I liked the guy and was happy to have him keep me company. An hour or so later, he signalled his intention to return home and asked if I wanted to join him. I desperately wanted to go with him, but I was just too scared to do so. My heart battled with my brain and I considered just how long I’d waited for an opportunity to present itself like this. I considered how blatant the guy was being: without
explicitly
spelling it out, it was clear what he had in mind. I decided
to decline his offer. I knew I was more than ready to do it but I was just too scared about wandering off somewhere with a complete stranger. Looking deflated, he scribbled his number on the corner of a page in the magazine that was sat before us and asked me to give him a call sometime. With that, he leaned over and kissed me. My first ever kiss with another man. My heart felt like it was about to beat out of my chest. The kiss seemed to last for minutes, although in reality it was actually over quite quickly. As soon as he walked away and out of my life, I regretted not taking the chance and accompanying him.

I returned to Soho again and again on my afternoons off from work and soon made a few friends. Sometimes, in the early evening, I’d return to the barracks and see if anybody wanted to go out later in the night. Towards the end of riding school and following my coming out, I’d become close to the soldier who had had rumours spread about him. Though I wondered whether the rumours were true, I didn’t cross the line and just ask him whether or not he was gay. Then, one night, we both found ourselves out with a large group of soldiers in the West End. After many drinks I approached the situation and asked him, face to face, if he was gay or not. He looked at me for some seconds before making a response and in those moments I considered I had the whole thing wrong. But he confirmed it. He told me he was gay and he begged me not to say anything. The two of us ditched the rest of the guys and I took him to a gay bar nearby, one that I’d frequented quite often in the previous weeks. That night, we danced away together and had more fun than either of us had ever had before. One thing led to another and in the early hours of the Sunday morning the two of us kissed. It felt amazing, so much more amazing than the kiss with the guy in the pub two weeks earlier. We left the club and caught a cab back to the barracks. With the door locked and wedged
shut just in case anybody walked in while we were together, he spent the night in my room. I’d never had a physical experience with anyone other than Kate – and I had been a young teenager, too. Though nothing to do with her, I had hated every minute of the things we did together, all because I wasn’t heterosexual. With my closeted soldier friend that night, the things we did felt completely natural. I’d waited for years to experience something like this. I thought of chasing Aaron around at fourteen and being attracted to Jonesy during basic training. At eighteen years of age, I’d finally experienced a sexual encounter that mattered to me.

With my new-found confidence I just wanted to keep on having fun. There was always someone who would want to go out. My circle of friends from the regiment, which was by now
growing
in numbers, would generally insist on starting off at a straight venue, usually in Leicester Square, before demanding I take them to a gay bar conveniently nearby. Faulkner, in particular, found something of an ‘untapped source’ of single women in gay bars, usually out with a gay friend who I’d then find myself talking to, just so he could initiate conversation with the girl. We’d repeat this action night after night, and soon it just became the norm for us to go to a gay bar together, acting as each other’s wingman.

As young, wide-eyed eighteen-year-olds go, I soon found that I was very popular with gay men on the scene. I was on the
receiving
end of drink offers and chat-ups almost constantly. Soon, and once I’d got a little more worldly wise, it was me chatting up the guys, the guys I wanted to chat up, and offering to buy drinks. In the initial weeks and months after I’d come out, I lost a lot of innocence as I quickly got swept up in scene life.

My soldier friend had moved back into the closet somewhat and I was faced with a situation where I could carry on a secret relationship with him, constantly having to double-check the
door was locked to preserve his anonymity, or support him purely as a mate and keep our past experiences secret. I wanted to spend more time on the scene and meet other guys. The difference between us both was that I wanted to spread my wings, but he still hadn’t found the courage to accept who he was. We stopped sleeping together and I looked elsewhere. The reservations I held on that first day in Soho were gone. I went out looking for guys.

Six months later, ashamedly, I was on the scene every night, going home with somebody different each time. I’d go to
whatever
part of town my sex mate lived, spend no more than an hour there and then jump into a cab, returning to Knightsbridge just in time for work. After a quick shower and shave, I’d be mucking out my horse and getting ready for either morning exercise or Queen’s Life Guard.

Queen’s Life Guard is the one role that the regiment has to provide on a daily basis in the capital. It’s the daily guard that leaves Hyde Park barracks at 10.30 each morning and returns twenty-four hours later having conducted a duty for the Queen at Horse Guards Parade.

A typical day for a soldier going on ‘Queen’s’ would be quite a long one: stables at 6 a.m. as normal but then immediately on top for a warm-up exercise for the horses – and for the men. This exercise, in the indoor riding school, was taken by the corporal of horse who was taking the guard on duty later that morning, and was an opportunity for him to account for all his men.

When the Queen is away, the guard is made up of ten troopers, one corporal and one corporal of horse, who assumes command. On weekdays, when the Queen is mostly in residence at Buckingham Palace, the guard is beefed up with a trumpeter, a warrant officer and a commissioned officer. On these occasions the commissioned officer is naturally in command. The guard will also carry a standard on guard with them, a large flag with
the regiment’s battle honours listed on it. The Queen presents a new standard every ten years. Iraq and Afghanistan are both on the new one.

After the exercise, and assuming all is correct, the guard then goes for breakfast before slowly fitting all of the immaculate kit, cleaned the previous afternoon, onto the horse. At 9.30, the ongoing guard begins to muster on the square and at 10 a.m. the orderly officer begins his inspection.

These inspections were what made or failed people in Knightsbridge. Every guard would be inspected fully and the findings recorded. If a soldier was found to be in bad order, he would be punished, normally by having to complete another inspection later that night while at Horse Guards. If a soldier was found to be in such a bad state that the orderly officer didn’t feel he could go on public display, he was replaced by the waiting man, who stood in full kit behind the guard – a substitute, if you like.

If a soldier was ‘ripped off’, a phrase used to describe a soldier being removed from the guard for being in bad order, he was usually jailed on the spot for a few hours, before facing his squadron corporal major (or SCM). The SCM would hand him a bollocking, the sort that you wouldn’t forget, and decide what further action to take. This happened to me once, during my first few guards after kit ride, and the SCM (who I won’t name) screamed at me and punched me in the stomach. I’d received what the other lads called a ‘sucking chest wound’ – and boy, did it hurt. After my ‘chat’ in the office, I was driven to Queen’s Life Guard where I was to re-clean my kit fully and present it for re-inspection at ten o’clock that night.

I made sure it never happened again but on this occasion the problem had become complex. I’d been cleaning my kit for the guard as normal, but there was still a lot of reaction going on with
regard to my coming out. I couldn’t stand still for five minutes without someone coming up to me and asking a load of questions about my sexuality. I didn’t mind at first, but soon rumours were circulating about me and the closeted soldier I’d been involved with, after he’d stupidly told one of the boys while drunk one night in a pub. Gossip was something I found particularly
stressful
, and the whole thing just made me want to stop cleaning my kit and lock myself away in my room. The rumours and constant questions were preventing me from doing my job properly, and failing the guard inspection was an unfortunate consequence of the situation. Soon enough, though, everything died down.

After the inspection, the guard would leave Hyde Park barracks at exactly 10.30, with the trumpeter sounding as it did (assuming the Queen was in London) and the whole regiment would stand to attention while the guard exited through the ceremonial gates.

At a slow pace, the guard would make its way along South Carriage Drive, saluting the memorial for the 1982 Hyde Park bombing as it went. Soon, it would pass through Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner and move onwards towards the palace and the Mall. The trumpeter would sound the royal salute as it passed, notifying the Queen that her guard was on its way and about to be changed. We’d reach the bottom of the Mall and slowly walk onto the gravel at Horse Guards, just as the chimes of Big Ben were sounding 11 a.m. This was what was expected of us, to be just getting in place opposite the off-coming guard as the bell sounded. Sometimes we’d pull it off; often we’d be early or, worse, late. Unluckily for the guard, the general who commands all things ceremonial in London lives in the office that overlooks Horse Guards Parade, above the centre arch. There was never any way of bluffing being late for guard change. The thousands of tourists awaiting the arrival of the oncoming guard were very unforgiving if it was later than 11 a.m.

Then followed half an hour of not a lot. While the corporal of horse was having the guard handed to him behind the scenes in the building of Horse Guards, the remainder of us would stand outside while the tourists took photographs of us atop our
beautiful
horses. The corporal of horse would get a security brief and be told of the Queen’s movements. I used to find it incredible that a very blatant folder entitled ‘The Queen’s Movements’ was just left around for any of us to read. I used to enjoy a little nosy into what she was up to and where she was off to.

At 11.30 the guard change would be completed, with the
off-going
guard, members of the Life Guards (known by us as the ‘Tins’), leaving Whitehall and making their way back to Hyde Park barracks along the route we’d just followed. Horse Guards was then home for the next twenty-four hours, until we were replaced by the Tins the following morning. This has gone on for centuries and will probably continue forever, or at least until this country no longer has a royal family.

Interestingly, the guys didn’t overly mind going on Queen’s. It was also very useful if you had no money, as your meals were provided free of charge while in Whitehall. Those that did mind would often pay other soldiers to do their guards. In 2005, the going rate for a weekday guard was about
£
50. At a weekend, that went up to about
£
80. If it was a payday guard, soldiers would pay anything up to
£
150 to someone for covering their duty. Prices for Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve guards went off the scale. It was very simple to orchestrate, too. If, say, I needed to get off my guard due to me needing to be somewhere, like on a date for instance, I’d ask the boys in the troop if anybody was free and willing to cover the duty for me. The offering soldier would name his price and the money would be handed over. To finish the deal, you’d just notify the corporal of horse, who would cover your back if the other lad didn’t turn up.