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A detachment from the Royal Marines will be the guests of honour at the Lord Mayor's Show tomorrow, marking their return from Afghanistan after three years' service.
The Marines will march through the City for their homecoming parade before the new Lord Mayor, Nick Anstee, is sworn in.
Dating back to 1215, the Lord Mayor's inaugural outing is from Mansion House to the Royal Courts of Justice and back again.
This year there will be a military theme. It includes a flypast of two fighter jets and other aircraft which are due to pass over Mansion House at 11am to mark the start of the parade. There will also be 25 military units, with 11 bands and 60 horses.
Floats from the 63 participating organisations - made up of 122 vehicles, 149 horses and 23 bands - will travel first from Mansion House to St Paul's, where the Lord Mayor will be blessed by the cathedral's Dean.
They will move to the Royal Courts of Justice for the Royal Oath, during which the Lord Mayor will swear allegiance to the Queen. Mr Anstee, the 682nd Lord Mayor, is a qualified accountant and keen runner who is competing in his 17th London Marathon next year. He was elected alderman for the Ward of Aldersgate in 1996, having represented that ward as a common councilman since 1987.
In addition to service on the boards of City of London School for Girls and Sir John Cass's Foundation Primary School, his voluntary work includes being a director of the London Marathon and a special adviser to the Barts and The London Charity.
His mayoral charity this year, Pitch Perfect, provides musical and sporting opportunities for young Londoners.
Tomorrow's show will see more than 6,000 people, some from as far away as Gibraltar and Hong Kong, forming a procession nearly three miles long to celebrate the City's heritage.
The military parade will be followed by the new Lord Mayor travelling in the 252-year-old state coach, which is gold-plated and weighs nearly three tonnes.
The return journey will set off at 1pm along Victoria Embankment, ending at Mansion House.
The day culminates in a fireworks show at 5pm, launched from a barge moored between Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges.
Last year the procession attracted 450,000 people and the British television audience was nearly two million.
