When we found out that the 2025 London Pride parade would be on the 5th of July, we decided to stay an extra day in London and take in the parade on our way back up to my father-in-law’s house. According to the parade website, there would be 1.5 million people attending. I didn’t know how long we’d last in crowds like that, given that we were carrying our backpacks packed with the week’s worth of stuff. I imagined tightly packed crowds, not being able to see the parade, and the girls and I running the risk of losing each other. We decided we’d give it an hour and, if we weren’t having a good time, we’d leave.

What a fabulous time we had. We arrived into Waterloo station and followed the occasional rainbow flag wearing individuals in the crowd across the river and in the direction of Trafalgar Square. The closer we got to the site of the parade, the more colourful and rainbowy it all became. Trafalgar Square was busy, with singers already performing on the stage. We walked on until we hit the barrier-lined route of the parade. My plan was to walk upstream along the parade route, in the direction the parade was coming from, and find a place to watch from.

We walked a few hundred metres, the crowds along the route growing the farther we went. We found a space against the barrier, put our bags down, and there we stayed for the next few hours. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect viewing spot.

The crowd was friendly and upbeat. The woman next to me, waiting to see her 15-year-old son pass in his first Pride parade, offered to share her sandwiches with us and drew a rainbow on my arm. All around us was colour and joy, laughing and dancing.

Not everyone was as jubilant as the parade spectators. The bikers paraded past first but, rather than the rest of the parade following fast on their heels, we waited for 50 minutes while nothing happened at all. No-one knew what was going on. Finally, a volunteer told us that anti-LGBTQ+ protesters were holding up the parade near Hyde Park Corner. In the words of Taylor Swift ‘You need to calm down’. Finally, we heard they were on the move again. The first float to go past, bore the marks of the protestors. The white lorry that pulled the float was splashed with red paint.

But those sad people with nothing better to do with their time didn’t get to experience the joy and exuberance of the parade participants and spectators. It was lovely to see the participation of the LGBTQ+ staff and members of so many businesses, organisations and institutes, of all branches of the armed forces, and of the NHS. But what really moved me were the NGOs that support LGBTQ+ refugees from countries where their very existence is criminalized and their lives are endangered, and those groups of refugees and immigrants into the UK who have found homes here. It was deeply moving to see those groups parade past.

When we finally left, we ran into a little of those crowds that I’d feared. Moving up the street against the stream of humanity moving in the opposite direction was a bit frustrating, especially as now were were hungry and thirsty and in search of lunch (we’d declined the kind woman’s offer of sandwiches, despite her protestations that she had plenty).

It was a wonderful, life affirming, uplifting day at the end of a very special week in London.