Guiding Pride in London

What a fabulous day at London Pride and having the opportunity to march with Girl Guiding again was a dream, this time with Meerkat. We got on the train in St Neots with the tourists and already stood out with our rainbow headgear and rainbow facepaint. Two others on the train were rainbowed up and once we got talking, it was their first time to pride, first time to London and they were only 14 and 16 years old! So we took them under our wing, escorted them on the tube and showed them where to get off an view the parade. We gave them our number just in case. We giggled that the last thing their parents said was not to talk to strangers and it was the first thing they did!

On route we bumped into a group of Canadian Guides and had to introduce ourselves. We arrived at HQ and donned our bright pink 'girls can be proud' tops, covered ourselves in rainbows and all 50 of us boarded a bus to the starting point. I was sat next to a gentleman wearing full blazer and long trousers on a really hot day. He was off to the members enclosure at Lourdes and was shocked when the bus turned pink with guiders.

We took the long walk to the start and set up camp. You could tell who had been before, we were the ones sat down straight away and ready for the very long wait. The wait seemed much longer this year. Half way through the wait I found the work walking group and wished them happy pride. Meerkat and Philippa were loving it and we hadn't even started yet!

We finally made it to the start of the parade and we were off...then stopped...then off...then stopped. That was the whole parade. We high fived the crowd, blew bubbles at them, blew whistles and gave out stickers. My favourite bit was making the crowd do the guide promise sign.