MIDNIGHT TATOO

Hokitika Guardian, 7 August 1930, Page 2

MIDNIGHT TATOO

r A HUNDRED THOUSAND VOICES. (By Nellie M. Scanlan, in the Auckland* “Star.”) Aldershot is the headquarters, of the British Army. Believe me, it is no small encampment. Once a year during Ascot week, they stage a military tattoo in the great arena, which is flanked by grandstands on one side, and the foiest on the other. This performance, wet or tine, dra>vs an audience that makes threatre managers green with envy. Yet it is thirty-five miles from London, exposed to all the vagaries of the English summer and an all-night enterprise. You may leave town in the late afternoon, and dine at some charming country inn, at Virginia Waters or Sunnitigdale, or make a later departure, and have a picnic dinner in the carror coach. And when the tattoo is over at midnight, you may join the' thousands who pailt their car along the Hog’s Back or beside by-pass roads, and have supper champagne and chicken—and watch the dawn come in.

To park 30,000 cars and buses is a formidable task. Two hundred miles of wire, and 3500 lamps are used in the scheme which converts the undulating land with its trees and clumps of forest into a car park. When you arrive in day light, you piay take some beech tree as a landmark. By midnight the whole if flee of the country has changed, Every bit of level ground is taped off, each car breasts the tape in perfect rows, Coloured lights indicate each sectionred, blue, , yellow green. You are told whenvyou park what to look for after dark- —you may be in Red 3, or Yellow 5. And after the performance, pointing .arrows and coloured .lights lead you to • Red 3 or Yellow 5. And all along the road for miles, policemen in white linen coats’ guide you on your appointed way. They' split the traffic [ for London, for Guildford, for Brighton.

' CROMWELL’S ARMY', The,; performance does not start till nearly ■ ten, vuntil June’s long-lighted day has waned. . It is now dark.. The searchlights suddenly pool their beams into the arena as Monck’s Regiment of Cromwbll’s army (1643) come inarching in in*their, fantastic, uniforms and quaint equipment. They Ipy down their arms and take them up again to become Coldstream Guards, the oldest British Regiment, and to swear allegiance to the Merry Monarch, Charles II Orders were given in the old way: “Piliemen and musketeers, take heed! Halt!” How different from the sharp bark of to-day’s command. The origin of the trooping of the colours was another picturesque scene, ai.jso the Battle of Dettigen, when the British put the French to flight. You wondered who did the laundry for this white-clad army.

Queen Elizabeth’9 visit to Tilbury Dock, or Fort ns it was then, during the fight with the Spanish Armada was magnificently staged. Sir Francis Drake and his men were seen playing bowls at Plymouth Hoe, when the alarm beacons flared in the-’Sky. Over against the distant skyline we saw the. ships of the Armada, ini a;'fierce battle, their white sails like pale ghosts suddenly luminous with the glow of battle and obscured by clouds of smoke. Behind the Fort at Tilbury were the masts and spars of shipping. The army assembled, and Queen Elizabeth rode in on her white palfrey, her cloak of purple velvet spread over the caparison of flame and gold. Then she made her historic speech but expurgated to suit the sensitive modern ear. MASSED VICTORIA CROSS. Tiw finale was an evolution of the Grenadier Guards with red and white lanterns in the blackened arena. All lights were shut off, and only the glow of the lanterns marching with perfect precision, weaving patterns in dark of midnight, held the eye. Finally they massed themselves into the outline of that “Most Enviable Order,” the Victoria Cross, In the darkness glowed this gigantic Victoria Cross in lights, and a hundred thousand voices joined in : ' ■ O valiant hearts, who to your glory came .Through dust of conflict and through battle flame; While in the frailty of our human clay Christ, our Redeemer,' passed the selfsame way. It was magnificent. And the five thousand troops who had taken part in the tattoo, still wearing the uniforms of Monck’s regiment, of Dettigen, of the Armada : , and the less picturesque khaki massed, about the Victoria Cross with all the bands, and pipes and drums. It was midnight in that open stretch of country, the arena, when that mighty audienCe.stood and sang God Save tue King Day was breaking as we crossed the Thames into London town.