25th May 2026 - Buckingham Palace Garden Party
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Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending a garden party celebrating 
young people who have earned their Gold Duke of Edinburgh awards. This 
was held at Buckingham Palace, the London gaff of the Royal Family. I 
was attending as a supporter and was nominated to attend. Each 
year, there are 3 events at Buckingham Palace and one at Holyrood in 
Edinburgh.

Dress for the occasion is formal with uniforms being welcomed. This 
was a mercy as Scout uniform has a short sleeve shirt option and the 
weather was looking to be warm. It was 29 degrees C that day. Yep, I 
was happy to not have to wear a jacket! I did however, have to wear 
trousers as opposed to my desired shorts. As soon as the temperature 
if above 22 degrees C, I need shorts to remain vaguely cool. There 
were many a poor wretch suffering in their suits. 

Entry was via a gate to the right hand side of the main big gate at 
the front. I turned up early so enjoyed some people watching. There 
were a great number of tourists who kept asking what was going on and 
why I had an invite. After passing through the security bit, it was 
through the gates and standing in front of the palace. It felt weird 
being that side of the gates at a place I have seen on TV a fair bit 
or from afar while doing the tourist thing. Entry to the garden was 
via a side gate to the right. 

On the lawn were several marquees. The biggest being the tea tent of 
course. For this, we received a choice of 4 different cakes and a 
70th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme mug filled with 
tea or coffee. The tea was a Twinnings garden party blend. To be 
honest, it was designed to be made milky and so I felt not that great. 
Lacked the bite of assam or delicate tones of darjeeling. A shame but 
hey, free mug! There were 2 military bands playing. One would play 
while the other rested. One was the Royal Marine band and the other 
was one of the Army bands. Alongside this, there were also speakers to 
go and listen to. The selection were nearly entirely people I did not 
recognise from Strictly Come Dancing, Eastenders, reality TV nonsense 
and all that. However, there was David Seaman, a name I had not heard 
for some time. Although he was without his trade mark moustache so 
hard to recognise. For those unaware, he was the goal keeper for the 
England football team for most of the 90s. Each speech seemed to be 
about the same thing - resiliance. Which is great but not when you 
have shown that resiliance by completing a fairly difficult set of 
challenges and earning their award. The only good thing was reminding 
the award holders that they had achieved something big and to remember 
that when things got tough later on. 

I spent a fair while wandering around the gardens. They were pleasent 
but you could always hear the chaos of London traffic around the 
outside. Sirens and horns, a soundtrack which no one wants. The 
gardens have a large lake in the middle and are mostly made up of 
large and mature trees. There are large flower beds around the 
boundaries but they were just starting to bloom. The tree canopy did 
help alot with the heat. There were some more specialised gardens such 
as the rose garden too. These were nice and blooms were in full swing. 
One oddity is the Waterloo Vase, a 4.6m tall marble urn. This was some 
spoils of war without any colonial guilt. It was presented to Napoleon 
I but gifted to the future George IV after the battle of Waterloo. 

The event concluded with some speeches from Dame Kelly Holmes, an 
olmpian who got gold for the 800m and 1500m in Athens, the Duke of 
Edinburgh and a gold award recipient. They were good speeches and it 
was great to hear about the recipient's journey and what it meant for 
them. Then it was time for the Duke of Edinburgh to go walkies. There 
was a route set out for him and we had amassed as he walked along to 
do what royals are paid for - smiling, waving and chatting 
occasionally at pace. Edward seemed to be enjoying himself. I suppose 
being the one who is not king, not the female one or a nonce means 
you can enjoy these things. He did not have sausage fingers like Brian 
does. More things to be thankful for I suppose! 

Then it was the end. Well, you could linger some more but it was hot 
and I wanted to get into shorts rather quickly. A pint would have been 
appreciated as well after making small talk all day with strangers. On 
the way out, there was a load of debris and police. It turns out that 
an accident had occurred where someone rode an electric scooter into 
a group of police. Unfortunately several people ended up in hospital. 

Buckingham Palace is a strange building. The front is fairly grand and 
the rear is sort of appealing. The sides are ugly. I think I can 
understand why no Royal seems to like it. It suffers from having been 
expanded bit by bit and seems a bit of a collection of bodges. 

It was a nice event and I am glad to have gone. My parents have been  
to 2 garden parties and my mum went to celebrate achieving her gold 
award. For some reason my mum has said she is proud of my going. I am 
baffled by this. I only volunteer for supervising the expeditions as 
it is fun. I don't know. I am pleased to have been nominated but 
cannot say I am proud. I am proud that I have enabled lots of 
young people to get past their individual challenges and meet their 
goals. I am also proud to have provided many young people with a space 
to be theirselves and have fun with friends doing daft things. Some 
have remained within Scouting as leaders and are a pleasure to  
volunteer with. Some have become engineers too. All have become people 
who will have a positive impact on other people in some form. This is 
what I am proud of. Always nice to have a day out of the ordinary 
though, even if the tea was pants.