A Guardsman’s life as not as glamorous as it might seem

This book is the perfect present for the Guardsman in your life. It offers an authorised biography of the five regiments of Foot Guards and two of Household Cavalry from 1969 to the present day. In that half century the Guards have been under fire in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan, with much of the time also spent maintaining a presence in West Germany.

These were busy years. Units of the Household Division took part in no fewer than 24 operational tours in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2013, many of them involving intense combat. At the same time, the Guards have also had to keep up a demanding schedule of ceremonial duties. Buttoning up their red coats, brushing off their bearskins and buffing their boots, they have not only appeared in major parades and processions such as Trooping the Colour and the King’s coronation but have also mounted daily guard outside the royal palaces.