Over the past few months, a seemingly omnipotent bug has been steadily sweeping the nation: Royal Wedding fever. Over at Pride, we’ve given up trying to fight it and have chosen instead, to focus on those behind the scenes and their contributions to the special day. Pride’s Gloria Ogunbambo caught up with Jason Witham, one of the eleven Grey Escorts (mounted branch police) in the running to accompany newlyweds Prince William and Kate Middleton as they return from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace.
What would it mean to you to be a part of the Royal Wedding?
It’s a really nice thing to do as it’s a one-off sort of thing. My children are quite young: eight and six, so they’ve got a small concept of what might be involved, but my mum and dad are big fans of the royals. I watched the last royal wedding at home with them actually! I never thought: “One day, I’ll be a part of that”.
So what made you want to join the force and in particular, the mounted branch?
Previously, I was a chef and there’s such a short span of life for that. Obviously you have to think about that when you want to start a family. I was working 16 or 17 hour days. This is the only other job I wanted to do and I thought the time was right. After a couple of years, (in the force) you start thinking about what can you specialise in and the mounted branch was the thing that rocked my boat, so to speak.
What kind of training is involved?
The application process is quite arduous but once you actually get through that, you attend a training course down in Surrey (a 16-week residential course) and you can be riding anything from 1 to 4 hours a day. At the time, my riding experience wasn’t even worth talking about! You learn everything from the health of the horse, to veterinary care.
What’s a normal day like for a mounted branch officer?
I come in and check Fulham (Jason’s horse) over to make sure he’s had a good night. After feeding and grooming him, I’ll see what I have on that day. It could be anything: taskings on different boroughs, especially if they’re crime-heavy, if they’ve been hit with burglaries or stuff like that. You could be on the football, you could be on at Twickenham, you could be on a concert. Normally you usually know 2 or 3 days in advance but obviously that could change at any moment. If you’re needed elsewhere, off you go.
What’s Fulham’s temperament like? Will he be ok for the Royal Wedding?
Yeah. He’s quite composed and we’ve been partnered for about a year. He trusts me and that’s what it’s all about. To know the horse and for it to know you, I can do a lot of things with this horse that other people can’t. If I see something at the side of the road, I’ll know whether he’s going to react to it and I know the sort of things he will react to and I can prepare for them.
Any special preparations for the big day? A haircut? A snazzy ensemble perhaps?
For myself? Yeah, a special uniform! (On ceremonial occasions, mounted officers usually wear black, silver-striped breeches and a sliver lanyard). For Fulham, he’ll have his mane pulled, he’ll have his legs clipped out, and a spick and polish.
How does it feel to know you’ll be one of the few black faces participating in the Royal Wedding? Do you feel like you’re doing a little bit to represent?
Yeah. I get a lot of comments day to day in the street anyway. People saying “I’ve never seen a black man on a horse before” and things like that. I hear that about 25-30 times a day. My response to that is always: “Well, you have now!”
