Throwback: Out and About - Part II - Buckingham Palace (London, Dec 2014)

My first visit to London was in 1983. It was after my sister (Zuhaira's elder sister, Nur Syahira) passed away. She was only 11 months and well, it was fated. Funnily though, after 32 years, I still remembered the night visit to the hospital, the neighbours came, abah or was it mama whom bathed her, I was very sad...and it was arwah Long Yeim attended to me on a sofa outside the house...(of all people)

I remembered the day we went to make our passports and have our picture taken in the photo booth. We were unsure what it was for, but we were on our way to London months later on Mas's B747-200 to London. It was captained by a Capt. Zul (already a Datuk now) and we watched Tootsie on a big screen . The whole aircraft was a playground for us..

London! Uncle Dol (Datuk Mohammad Kamal Yan - mom's brother) and Aunty Sabrina (Datin) were there at that time. Their son, Izwan was only 1yr old had only learnt to walk (about the same age as Nur Syahira). 

Uncle Dol was working at the Malaysia High Comm. in London. It rained when we arrived and Aunty Sabrina's brother (called him Abg Zul) fetched us in a Honda Civic. I even remembered his question about how long we will be in London (2weeks, abah said) and from that moment, it was magical (another topic, maybe..all pictures in KL)

Among the places we visited was the Trafalgar Square (it was full with pigeons, those days) and from there it was a short drive to Buckingham Palace. I think, after all these years still looked the same...

A military band marching into the compound for the
'Change of Guard' ceremony

behind the 'fleur de lis' 

Fay and Ben

We underestimate the crowd. It was school holiday and within moments were jostling among the crowd to get closer to the gate, only managed to get a view from the east wing of the palace. Then we heard a band marching in and the whole change of guard ceremony started. Oh ya, btw, the Marble Arch in London was originally from the palace. Ok, it seemed that the ceremony is quite elaborate that we left for The Regent's Park. The Queen was not in Buckingham for only the Union Jack was present and not the Royal Standard of the Queen on the flag pole at the top of the palace.

group photo..again

Plaque showing the Lady D's Memorial Walk (a small shoeprint in the arrow, showing the general direction)

The Queen V statue opposite the palace

Here and there you would see memorial dedicating to the servicemen during both world war. On our way to the palace from Constitution Hill road, we passed these memorial dedicated to the men from the India sub-continent and South East Asia Commonwealth Nations.

Afifa and I would again come here in the middle of the night visiting London to have a closer look at all these memorial and these were some of the shots we took.

The statue in front of palace at night

the India sub-continent memorial

marble pergola and casket

Names of medals recipient and the respective
war which they received for

you can clearly see Malaya, Singapore,
Hong Kong and Dutch East Indies

And not far off from the memorial, another one and I think it was quite recent one dedicating to the men and women of the Bomber Command (Britain, Canada and Commonwealth) also to the civilians killed during the bombing raid.

I can understand this one being recent as bombing tactics used during WW2 was not precise. It was precise to some degree but still, many civilians died. I guessed it took them many years to come up with this one due to protest and what not. Anyway, we had taken some pictures of the memorial.

wreath from the family and  the
current and former members of the bomber squadron

close up of the statue, as if just returned from
a bombing mission (7 statues, 9 ft high)

I did peek at the wreath that were laid at the memorial. Mostly from a current bombing squadron. I was looking for the "Dam Busters", sqn 617 or 612 but to no avail. Anyway, I bet during the Emergency in Malaya there was a bomber squadron based in Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia. Giving assistance to our army and police against the communist. 

The night visit to London was made possible because of our favourite bus, no 94.