Royal Ascot Chauffeur Hire, Berkshire

Five days of June belong to Royal Ascot, and it behaves rather less like a race meeting than a very large garden party that happens to have horses in it. Gates open late morning. Lunch runs long. Early afternoon brings the Royal Procession down the straight, racing carries on through to early evening, and a good part of the crowd then stays on around the bandstand. Most of that day you will spend on your feet, outdoors, in your best clothes.

What a chauffeur alters is the two ends of it. Instead of crossing a field from some numbered car park, you are set down close to the enclosure entrances, which in heels and a hat that has to survive the wind is a different proposition altogether. Coming home, a single message brings the car back. Nobody in your group has spent the afternoon on elderflower cordial, quietly doing arithmetic about the drive home.

Arrive earlier than instinct says you need to. Roads round Ascot, Windsor and Sunninghill thicken from late morning, and it is the last two miles that crawl, which is why we usually suggest leaving London before the middle of the morning. For the return, give us a rough departure window rather than an exact minute. Badges, enclosure admission and hospitality all come from the racecourse or from your host; Luxury Chauffeurs is independent and supplies the car alone.

Two of you travelling? A Rolls-Royce Ghost or a Mercedes S-Class is the natural pick, though it is the Phantom people photograph. Five or six are far better off in a V-Class, where hats travel upright and nobody ends up with a coat across their knees. Should your party split across enclosures, we run two vehicles on identical timings, so the return never turns into a negotiation.