LET'S START AT THE VERY BEGINNING

The first issue of COUNTRY LIFE was published 125 years ago. Former Editor Clive Aslet takes a look at what was happening in London at the same time

- Clive Aslet

THE great procession rolled on. Monarchs, maharajas, ambassadors, the British Army and the Royal Navy; Imperial troops came from the immensity of Australia and mere dots on the map, such as Malta; from the rock of Hong Kong and the open spaces of New Zealand; from old colonies in the West Indies and new ones in Africa. Canada, Natal, India, Ceylon, Fiji, Rhodesia, Cyprus, the Straits Settlements, Borneo, Jamaica, Trinidad, Bermuda, Barbados, Sierra Leone, Gambia, the Gold Coast, Lagos, Northern and Southern Nigeria. Eventually came the carriage containing the focus of the parade, the Queen Empress herself, a dumpy lady in black who had been on the throne for 60 years. It was June 1897 and the great pageant of the Diamond Jubilee was under way.