It struck me I'd never seen a 21 gun salute, and what better occasion than this blog's 21st birthday? So I headed to the Tower of London to watch the Honourable Artillery Company bang their big guns, officially to celebrate the first anniversary of the succession of the sovereign.
The multiple firing takes place on a terrace overlooking the Thames officially called the Gun Wharf. On this particular Friday the advance guard arrived early in a white van from which they unloaded nine sturdy green metal boxes of ammunition. They then stood around in the shade of a plane tree and applied sun protection, because soldiers are safety-conscious as well as ruthless, and waited for the big guns to arrive. For safety reasons the Gun Wharf has to be cleared of the public well before the first shot, in this case at 11.45am for a 1pm start, so don't expect to get any closer than the cobbles in front of the Tower (and don't expect to get a good view from there either).
I headed across the river to watch the spectacle from Potters Fields, along with a bustle of tourists who had no idea what was about to happen. They were too busy taking obligatory selfies with Tower Bridge as a backdrop and were particularly captivated by the fact the bascules had just raised to let a paddlesteamer through. As the Dixie Queen nosed closer it passed in front of the Tower of London... and at precisely this moment came under fire from the first ceremonial gun. The report echoed loudly around the Pool of London, thunderously so, and many people must have wondered if a national security incident was underway.
The bangs continued at precise ten second intervals, each preceded by a flash and billowing smoke which we saw before the noise reached us across the river. Three guns were being used in sequence, so once one team had fired they had thirty seconds to restuff their barrel before it was their turn to fire again. Before long the explosions became perfectly normal, indeed most tourists had barely taken their eyes off the coincidental drama passing beneath Tower Bridge, but they must soon have started wondering if the bangs were ever going to stop. A 21 gun salute at the Tower of London actually consists of 21 blasts for the event in question, an additional 20 blasts for being a royal palace and 21 more "for the City of London". This is particularly odd given that the firing actually takes place just over the border in Tower Hamlets, but it does mean to expect a 62 gun salute, not just 21.
GUN SALUTE MATHS Q1) Three guns - A, B and C - fire 62 times in sequence. Gun A fires first. Which gun fires last? Q2) The shots in a 62 gun salute are 10 seconds apart. How long does the gun salute last?
I knew when it was going to stop because I'd been counting since the start, so correctly observed the 62nd and final bang. You'd have expected nothing less. It had all sounded terribly impressive, even if the King was 400 miles away and had heard none of it. But what I hadn't really seen is what the soldiers were actually doing, just tiny uniformed matchstick people standing formally on the far bank. So I'm obliged to the Tower of London's Twitter account for showing me close-ups of what I missed, from the initial lining up to the signal to fire to driving away in a truck at the end. And if you want to experience the pomp and fury of a gun salute at the Tower then the next, Ian says, will be for the King's birthday in November.
