| 2005 Edinburgh Military Tattoo - Page 7 | |
A cave, a grotto, a basement, the catacombs, any of these would quite adequately describe the rest
area that we occupied between coming off from the opening sequence until going back on for the finale.
Situated just off the esplanade and down a couple of flights of very old stairs it was a cellar suspended
over Edinburgh on the Castle terrace. We occupied a place just near the entrance on fold out chairs between
the rest of the Tattoo performers and the television which didn't work very well but was watched anyway,
especially if there was any Scottish Football being played.
The grotto did have a canteen at which you could purchase burgers, pies, softdrinks, tea,
coffee and chocolates. It was also a place where if you had badges of any kind on your
uniform you kept an eye open for the yellow jacketed marshals who with a view to adding
to considerable collections (all pinned to their jackets) considered you fair game and
would liberate badges right off your uniform.
Now you
would think that it would be all military precision but it was pretty much as far from that
as you could get. On the Royal mile would be this mass of humanity, that was well just standing
around, and at some point as if by magic we would all charge up until just under the grandstand
in our ranks, and be ready to go. I was never quite sure how the massed bands go the cue, I suspect
it was from the Royal Marine conductor but sometime after the already formed up massed brass bands
started playing "Mull of Kintyre", we began our march back onto the esplanade. 
This march was
always the source of some humour, because the military bands seemed to slow down at one point
and this threw your pace off if you weren't concentrating, which meant that once the lights
went on you were out of step. As we didn't wear spats we probably wouldn't be that visible but
the Scottish Regiment guys were painfully obvious, so much so that if you were confident
you were in step your daren`t look down, because seeing spats in all variants of pace put
you right off and could have resulted in vomiting.
We marched up in darkness and it was once we struck our pipes in once again cued
by the conductor that the lights came on and the audience was treated to the spectacle
of massed Pipes and Drums appearing loudly out of the darkness. We then marched up between
the ranks of the military band and took our places for the finale. The next tune was called
"Caledonia" and then "Band Of Brothers" through "Auld Lang Syne and the "Evening Hymn".
By this time feet were hurting and the excitement of finishing your first tattoo was building.
After the lone piper had finished and we had finished "Scotland the Brave" we watched the
military bands march off with "No awa tae bide awa" and waited for the first three beat roll
signalling our first exit and our first real march down the Royal Mile. Once it arrived and
we were heading down the esplanade the relief was fantastic as was the elation you get
when 10 000 spectators stand, scream and applaud you.
This was our first real time to go down the Royal Mile and it was an interesting experience.
The first thing was how crowded it becomes when you squeeze 15 bands into a space that should
accommodate six, cosy! The second problem was that on the left flank the Black Watch were
marching on the pavement but what they didn't know was that the "bollards" (large black poles)
which stick up from the pavement and are about 3 foot high, had not been removed. It was
like something out of "Beep,Beep the Roadrunner" as the piper next to you impacted a bollard
and disappeared backwards. The bollard hit at about groin height so it's a good thing that
the Black Watch are legendary in terms of toughness. Our biggest problem was that at one
point we had to march with our left leg on the pavement and the other on the road……..good thing
we're an Irish Regiment and have a generally skew attitude to most things!