With their distinctive bearskin headgear and their bright red uniforms the Grenadier Guards are a familiar sight at Buckingham Palace, a tourist’s delight of pomp and circumstance with the changing of the guard, but few are aware that the Grenadier’s are also a fighting unit. Starting with their three hundred and fiftieth celebration of existence, as a unit, the three part documentary takes a look behind the workings of the Guards...

Few regiments can be more recognisable or iconic as the Guards, having been the last line of defence for the monarchy since its formation during the English Civil War.

This three part documentary was originally shown, on ITV1, in 2007, though the shooting of the Guard’s took place during 2006, so this is an ideal opportunity for fans of all things military to catch up with a show that never made it to terrestrial television.

This type of documentary will be familiar to most, as it takes a number of characters and follows them through a period in their life and the life of the regiment, both engaging in ceremonial duties and their tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Each of the three shows runs for around forty-six minutes and turned out to be more interesting than my initial expectations. As well as the infantry part of their work we also get a look at the Guard's Band. Episode one has an eye opening moment where the band is being marked as to whether they are fit to play. I suppose like most I thought that the test would be just marching up and down playing military music, so it was a surprise to discover that they also have to play classical music, big band and dance music to pass - I’m pretty sure that the song they performed was a Bee Gee’s song.

The quality of the picture is very nice, which I guess you should expect from such a recent programme, though it was a shame that the audio was only stereo. The show comes with a number of extras. There are some outtakes (10 min 49 sec), which appear to be just sections taken out from the show, and not the sort of humorous mistakes that usually are presented as outtakes. You also get a four page history of the Guards, though obviously at four pages it’s a real thumb nail event, and a picture gallery.

Whilst I’m not a great fan of these sorts of things, the documentary was both engaging and illuminating. Next time you go and see the changing of the Guards I think your perspective may change; these guys aren’t the over privileged clothes horses that you would expect, but a real fighting unit doing as dangerous a job as any other soldier, losing comrades along the way.

7

Charles Packer