Lieutenant Colonel Ray Giles, Military Knight of Windsor who served at the funerals of George VI and Elizabeth II – obituary

Lieutenant Colonel Ray Giles, MVO, who has died aged 91, was a stalwart Military Knight of Windsor for 26 years and had the unique distinction of having been on parade for the funeral processions of both King George VI (as a trooper) and of Queen Elizabeth II at St George’s Chapel (in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel), as well as at the Coronation in 1953.

The son of a stockman, Raymond Roland Giles was born on 9 September 1931. He was educated at a secondary modern school but left at 13 to help with limited family finances. One day a recruiting sergeant discovered he had worked with livestock, gave his mother £5 and Giles a horse.

He enlisted in the Royal Horse Guards in 1949. Arriving in thick fog at Knightsbridge, he was sent away several times, then sent to the Life Guards, but persevered until finally accepted as a Blue.

He was posted to the Blues Mounted Squadron and rose through the ranks to become Regimental Corporal Major in 1969. He was commissioned in 1974 and served until 1996.

Early duties included being part of the escort when George VI opened the Festival of Britain in 1951; the state visit of King Frederik IX of Denmark; the arrival of King Haakon of Norway at Westminster Pier; the Trooping in 1951 when Princess Elizabeth took the salute; and he was part of the escort accompanying the Earl Marshal and Garter King of Arms from St James’s Palace to the Royal Exchange for the Proclamation of the new Queen in 1952.

For the Coronation the men rehearsed all night and then went straight on to regimental duties. Reveille was at 2am, followed by morning stables, watering and feeding the horses, then breakfast, stables again, grooming and kit cleaning. When the trumpeter sounded Boots and Saddles they went on parade for inspection.

Giles rode in the Sovereign’s Escort, in the third of four divisions, 25 yards behind the gold State Coach, from the forecourt of Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. During the service, he spent half an hour at Wellington Barracks in pouring rain, one man to four horses, before returning as part of the escort for the Queen’s return to the Palace. In the 2 ½-hour ride back at walking pace, he was soaked to the bone.

Many other ceremonial occasions followed, and Giles served at Windsor and in Cyprus and Germany. In 1965 he dipped the standard at Whitehall when Sir Winston Churchill’s funeral procession passed by, and carried the standard on parade at Horse Guards for the Battle of Waterloo 150th anniversary in the presence of the Queen. When she presented new standards to the Household Cavalry in 1983, his left trouser leg split from the top to the knee, to her restrained amusement. He was on duty at Carnarvon for the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969.

In 1968 he negotiated some tricky moments during a three-week Tattoo tour in the United States. He served in Northern Ireland and Canada, and in 1981 was posted to the Royal Yeomanry, in charge of the horses at Melton Mowbray. He was project staff officer for the rebuilding of Wellington Barracks in London and Victoria Barracks in Windsor between 1986 and 1996.

Giles was appointed a Military Knight of Windsor in 1996, living in the Lower Ward of Windsor Castle, where he was respected as an accomplished cook, maintaining a fine cellar. His Garter Day breakfasts were legendary among the Knights, and he even prepared a sumptuous four-course Sunday lunch in the last month of his life. He was one of those people who got on with everyone, from the Queen to the lowest cavalryman, and he was straightforward in all his dealings with people. When a groundsman planted an unwelcome tree outside one of his windows, he found a way of getting a message to the Queen, and it duly disappeared in the middle of the night.

He organised the 650th anniversary party for the Military Knights in the presence of the Queen and Prince Philip, stood guard over Princess Margaret’s coffin in 2002, and as a vice-president of the Royal Household Cricket Club he was on parade on Horseguards for the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday.

In 2016 he posed with the Welsh soprano Katherine Jenkins to promote the horse show spectacular being mounted for the Queen’s 90th birthday. As recently as October 9 he was in uniform for the final time for the presentation of the Garter banner of Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover. He was appointed MVO by the Queen in 2015 and held all four of the Jubilee medals of the reign.

In 1955 he married Margaret Joyce (Peggy) Prangnell, who survives him with their son and daughter.

Lt-Col Ray Giles, born September 9 1931; died October 15 2022