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Excitement builds among the ‘real mixture of people’ travelling to the capital by coach for the big day, discovers Adam Gabbatt Marjorie Williams and her sister, Vera Ogden, became firm friends with Margaret Thompson 16 years ago through a shared passion for dancing. “First ballroom, then sequence, and now line dancing too,” Williams said . The group travel to London together around three times a year on “girly trips”, but this is special. They are here for the royal wedding, and they have come prepared with a wide range of union flag-emblazoned apparel. “I’ve got my little flags, and my full one I’m wearing as a cape, and my hat, and I’ve got a purple feather I’m going to stick in it,” Williams, from Salford, said as she displayed the items. “I’ve told me family: ‘You won’t see me but you’ll see me hat.’ I’ve even remembered my knicker elastic to keep my hat on.” Willams, 71, and Thompson, 74, from Irlam, near Warrington, boarded a coach to London in central Manchester at 7.30am on Thursday morning. They were joined by Ogden, 72, in Stockport, one of several pick-up points on a trip they booked within days of William and Kate announcing their betrothal. “I rang Marge to ask her about booking to come down,” said Thompson. “And she’d booked this trip already. “We’ve left the men at home,” she added. “Well, they moan too much,” Williams said. “They only walk a couple of miles then they get tired.” The group were travelling on a National Holidays coach trip, which included travel to the capital, four nights’ stay at the Europa hotel near Gatwick airport, and travel into Victoria, close to Buckingham Palace, on the morning of the wedding. Martin Lock, commercial director at National Holidays, said there was a “real mixture” of people who had signed up to the six royal wedding trips the company was running. “There are some families, there’s more mature clients but there’s younger clients as well.” He said one enthusiastic young monarchist had booked the trip to celebrate their 21st birthday, although the crowd on the Manchester to London voyage on Thursday was distinctly more mature. The driver, Roger Morgan, revealed a recent disappointment to the Guardian at the first pick-up point in Manchester. It turned out that his efforts to decorate the coach in regal garb had been thwarted by his wife’s over-exuberance. “I sent her out to get us some bunting,” Morgan lamented in a thick Sunderland accent. “But she came back with two huge flags.” He shook his head. “They were just too big.” Mrs Morgan’s flags may have failed to make the trip to London, but she needn’t have worried about the coach looking bare. In Stockport, telephone engineer Darren Berry clambered on board, and promptly affixed a union flag tea towel, customised with a black marker pen to read “Royal Wedding 2011″, to the back window. He agreed to share his double-sided sticky tape with Williams, Thompson and Ogden, but at a price. “What’s it worth?” Berry said. “Do I get a kiss?” No kisses were forthcoming, but perhaps it was for the best given Berry was travelling with his wife, Elena Berry, and her best friend, Ulyana Martysemko. “These two are both from the Ukraine,” he said. “To have the excitement of saying we’ve been to the royal wedding – we’re all just really excited.” Berry (at 37, one of the younger travellers on the coach), said he could remember two big state events in his lifetime: the 1977 silver jubilee and Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981. “And this is like that,” he said, adding: “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.” A staunch monarchist, he said the royals “did a really good job for their country. All of them work, even Charles works. I don’t think people appreciate that.” A stop at motorway services just south of Birmingham provided further opportunity for coach decoration, most of the back half becoming adorned with flags fixed to the windows. With refreshments passed round, the talk turned to family history. Sisters Anne Harrey, 61, and Margaret Houghton, 64, who live in Glossop and Preston respectively, have London roots, and were keen to return to them. “Our family lived in Stratford, and our nana ran a pub in Hackney and knew the Krays,” Harrey said. “I’m really excited. I wanted to be there and now we’re almost there.” As one might expect from a royal wedding coach trip, the support for the monarchy was unflinching across the board. “I’m old fashioned, I like the royal family, but my sons don’t feel the same,” Harrey said as she tucked into a blackcurrant and liquorice boiled sweet. “They said: ‘What you going there for, they’re not even royal any more’.” Harrey said her attempts to involve her partner, David Smith, in royal wedding festivities had been ignored. “He didn’t want to know, so I thought: ‘Right, I’ll go with my sister.’” Houghton, ears perhaps burning, broke off from a chat about musical tastes (“I used to tell my husband I’d leave him for Cliff Richard”) to support her sibling. “She (Kate) looks lovely though, doesn’t she?” she added. “I think it’s good these two have had a normal life, they’ve been out to pubs and everything.” After a singsong – Rule Britannia, led by Williams – and a widespread nap, the conversation inevitably turned to Princess Diana. As the coach approached London, Jacqueline Coldrick, who was travelling with her 76-year-old mother, Hazel Oakley, joined the discussion with a comment that won general approval. “She [Diana] would have been beside herself, she would have been so happy,” Coldrick, 55, said to nods, respectful flag-waving and murmurs of agreement. “She would have been like a big sister to [Kate]. She would have been so proud.” Oakley broke the introspective moment that followed. “They stand a better chance than Charles and Di though,” she said quietly. “It’s a love match, that’s for sure. And she’ll be watching from up there.” Royal wedding Monarchy Weddings Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk