The alternative royal wedding - live: UK gripped by excitement as tree identification walk begins
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And so a momentous day draws to a close.
On Saturday May 19 2018 a tree identification walk was held in north London, and locomotive 7820 charmed everyone who saw her looking so radiant in her beautiful British Railways livery.
This was the day when the people of Britain got to enjoy American Dream followed by WTF (3.9 per cent alcohol by volume, at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Spring Steam and Real Ale Weekend).
And apparently two people got married.
At considerable cost, to possible public indifference and definite media hysteria.
Relive all the excitement here, if you can bear to:
Did we mention that Sky News is showing this in ultra-high definition?
Sky News certainly has.
Kay Burley has told us that we have seen Meghan Markle “in ultra-high definition for the last time as a commoner.”
And for those of you watching on normal television, that was even more profound in ultra-high definition
And doesn’t she look lovely!
(Ian Crowder/Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway)
Locomotive 7820 Dinmore Manor is heading down the track towards Winchcombe station and she's looking radiant in a beautiful livery of British Railways black.
She has red lining around her boiler, and her tender and cab are picked out in wonderful shades of red, cream and grey.
Lady Diana had a long train on her big day, and so does Locomotive Dinmore – eight chocolate and cream-coloured carriages, to Diana’s 25ft of white silk.
With a working weight of 69 tons, she’s a little heavier than Diana was on her 1981 wedding day, but her beautifully modified blastpipe and firebars are ensuring perfect steaming for the 68-year-old.
She’s the toast of everyone sipping their pints of American Dream, (or WTF), on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway’s spring ale and steam weekend.
In other news, Meghan’s heading down the aisle in a white dress.
The mind does tend to wander during these wedding services doesn’t it?
Thoughts might even stray to how much this whole bash is going to, you know, cost.
OK, so they may not actually be feeding some of the 1,200 worthy members of the public invited into the grounds of Windsor Castle, but isn’t it gracious of the royal family to foot the bill for the royal wedding?
Although they won’t be paying for the security. That’s the taxpayer’s job.
There have been some interesting figures bandied about when it comes to estimating this security bill, and some of them might even be authoritative.
One of the most eyecatching, and therefore most widely reported, was the assertion by wedding planning website Bridebook that the security arrangements would cost the taxpayer £30m.
That estimate, though, did include £1m for that must-have wedding accessory, the “Drone Destroyer”, to counteract the efforts of any paparazzo or ill-intentioned intruder who gets their hands on an unmanned aerial vehicle.
The estimated £30m might also seem a little steep in the context of figures obtained by the Press Association showing that the policing for Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton in 2011 cost £6.35m.
Adding to the potential confusion, though, is the fact that an earlier freedom of information request had suggested that the total cost of the security operation undertaken by the Metropolitan Police was closer to £7.2m.
Another estimate from 2011 suggested that once every security measure – including counter-terrorism activity - was accounted for, the true cost of ensuring the safety of Kate and William’s wedding was between £10m and £20m.
This time around, it’s safe to assume that the taxpayer will have to pay for some significant anti-terrorism enforcement, given the spate of attacks in the UK and Europe over the past 18 months, and the fact that Prince Harry is a former soldier who served in Afghanistan.
Thames Valley Police has also said that its part in securing the wedding on its patch will be one of the largest operations in its history.
Anti-monarchy group Republic, meanwhile, has delivered a 32,688-signature petition demanding no taxpayer funding for the royal wedding, and insisting: “If Harry and Meghan want to turn their big day into a public event, they need to pick up the bill – all of it.”
But of course, whatever we pay for Harry and Meghan’s wedding security will be more than offset to the boost it gives the economy, won’t it?
And did you know that one estimate puts that boost as high as £500m?
In December we were informed by consultants Brand Finance, via the Daily Express, that “the increase in tourism, combined with sales of royal memorabilia and the knock-on effect of spending in Britain’s shops, bars and restaurants, will be huge”.
Chief executive David Haigh said: “In 2012 we estimated the uplift of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations to tourism at £390m, including hotel bookings and merchandise sales. It could be expected that the royal wedding generates a similar or even larger value.”
Mr Haigh added: “Meghan Markle is an accomplished actress in her own right, with a global popularity and a strong personal brand.
“It can be expected that she will join the Duchess of Cambridge as a great ambassador of the monarchy and British brands in general, especially in her native US and in Canada where she recently lived.”
Alas, not every consultant has been quite so confident.
In the opinion of Harold Archer, killjoy chief economic advisor to forecasters the EY Item Club: “We would be wary of over-egging the potential impact or seeking to put a hard figure on the potential gains.
“We suspect there will be a very limited, temporary boost to the economy focused on some sectors, notably retail, tourism and, possibly, catering and pubs.”
Yes, he said, shops would benefit from people buying royal wedding souvenirs, “however, it should be kept in mind that some of the retail spending may just be switched from spending on other items”.
Mr Archer, a man who is clearly great fun at street parties, added: “There could be a temporary boost to consumer confidence due to a feel-good factor from the royal wedding. However, this will likely be short-lived as it does not affect the economic fundamentals facing households.”
So how massively was the economy boosted the last time we had one of these royal weddings?
The Office For National Statistics (ONS) looked into that in 2012 when they analysed the effects of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge getting married in April 2011.
After the usual caveats – the UK economy may also have been affected by record high oil prices and the 2011 Japanese earthquake – the ONS said that during the month of the royal wedding, the output in services industries ... err, fell by 1.2 per cent compared with March.
The ONS said the royal wedding month of April 2011 saw a fall of 1.6 per cent in the index of production and a 1.4 per cent drop in manufacturing production.
But on the plus side, retail sales did grow by 2 percentage points in April 2011 compared with the month before.
Although the pernickety types at the ONS did feel the need to point out that it had also been the warmest April for more than 100 years.
“Hot weather is often associated with a rise in retail sales,” they said. “The relative impact of the royal wedding and the hot weather in April are not distinguishable in these figures.”
As for that renowned royal wedding tourism boost: “The number of overseas visitors arriving in the UK showed very little change in the month of the wedding or the months around the wedding, and without a specific survey question it is difficult to say how many visits were related to the wedding.”
Meanwhile, declaring a bank holiday for the Kate-William wedding – something that hasn’t happened for Harry and Meghan – may have enticed quite a few Brits into leaving the country and spending their money abroad: “Some of the 0.5 million increase in UK residents going abroad [in April] may be attributed to the Royal Wedding due to the placements of the bank holidays.”
And recent analysis by the Financial Times seems to suggest that UK growth might actually have slowed around the time of Kate and William’s wedding.
The year-on-year percentage rise in GDP for the first quarter of 2011 was 2 per cent. But the corresponding growth figure fell to less than 1.5 per cent for the second quarter of 2011, during which the royal wedding wedding was held.
But if you do tune into the service, here’s the Most Reverend Michael Bishop Michael Curry, all the way from Meghan’s native US of A.
“I didn’t walk across the Atlantic Ocean to get here,” he tells the congregation.
Amazing the things you can learn if you watch a royal wedding.
Did Bishop Curry just steal the show there?
And did that gospel choir just set off a thousand brides-to-be screaming: "I need a gospel choir, book one NOW!!!"
Stiff upper lip royal tradition meets American-style expressiveness: the Americans win.
I wonder what Prince Philip made of it.
So the Americans have their charismatic bishops, but we have our, umm, charismatic royal family.
And that’s what really pulls the tourists in.
It’s the mystique of monarchy, “the brand building of the UK as a visitor destination”, as Euromonitor consultant Alexander Goransson puts it.
In terms of tourism, Mr Goransson thinks the “Meghan and Harry effect” will not be felt immediately, but from 2019 onwards.
Admittedly, Mr Goransson does say: “Having reviewed arrivals from the US over the past 10 years, it’s inconclusive if the 2011 royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and the 2012 Olympic Games generated in themselves an increase in the number of visitors from the US.”
But he still insists: “Since 2014 the arrivals trend from the US has been steadily upwards and will undoubtedly have resulted in the positive image of the UK generated by these events.”
“The Royal family is a major driver of UK tourism,” Mr Goransson adds, “Especially to sites associated with them.”
Indeed. What on Earth would happen to tourist attractions like Buckingham Palace if there were no royal family to live in them?
Doubtless they would become crumbling ruins, shorn of their royal magic, visited by no one.
Although when the website Travel+Leisure compiled a list of world’s most visited castles and palaces in 2015, the top spot was claimed by the Forbidden City, home to the Imperial Palace in Beijing, in communist, monarchy-free China.
The Fordbidden City attracted 15.3m visitors a year, despite the fact that China packed its last emperor Aisin Gioro Puyi off to prison in 1950, before releasing him and letting him work as a gardener in the Beijing Botanical Garden.
But what about tourism closer to home? What happens when you decide you don’t need the services of the crowned heads of Europe?
The French chopped the head off the last royal occupant of the palace of Versailles, sending Louis XVI to the guillotine on 21 January 1793.
And they don’t seem at all sorry.
More than two centuries after the execution, Versailles was still pulling in the tourists, attracting 7.5m visitors at the time of the Travel+Leisure survey, putting it in 4th place in the most visited table.
That was comfortably ahead of the Tower of London, home of the Crown Jewels, which came 7th, with 2.9m visitors.
Buckingham Palace, which attracts about 567,600 annual visitors for it summer openings, did not make the top 20. Windsor Castle, with 1.3m annual visitors, sneaked in at number 19 – just behind the Catherine Palace, a summer residence for the tsars of Russia (deposed 1917).
There’s more on the economic value of monarchy from the Independent’s economics editor Ben Chu, here.
From Ultra-High Definition Sky News:
“Major Prince Harry … Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Sussex
“On this wonderful day … Absolutely unbelievable, as Meghan Duchess of Sussex gives a wave to the public as she leaves …
“Her Majesty the Queen …
“It’s wonderful to see Windsor with the state standard behind this glorious site … Tradition as old as the hill itself on which that great grand tower sits … I’m lapping it up … A modern day fairy tale…So special ... a real feeling of warmth, a huge feeling of love ...”
I think we’ve hit peak guff spouting.
The conversations you can have when you mingle among those cheering crowds:
"I met Margaret 40 years ago at the silver jubilee," says David Jones, 84.
Margaret Tyler, 74, chips in: "We're best friends. He helps me out every day".
"I work to a plan. I do 3 or 4 hours of work for every day, doing all the royal plates and cups for her," he explains.
Ms Tyler says she repays him by cooking and taking him to hospital.
"My house in Wembley is like a shrine to the royal family," she says. "The royal family is me and David's great common interest."
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