The famous bearskin headgear worn by Guards regiments of the British Army is to be redesigned after a number of troops fainted during a Trooping the Colour rehearsal in London in 30 degree heat.

Prince William has asked Sir Elton John to design a new bearskin with an integral parasol so that the guardsmen can keep cool in any temperature.

A spokesperson for Sir Elton told FNN:

The new parasols will be activated by a special button on the side of the bearskin that will cause them to pop out of the top and open.

A new command - Deploy Parasol! - will be added to military regulations so that officers can order the troops to go into 'parasol mode' when the temparature rises above 25 degrees.

Parasols will be 'branded' with the badges of the respective regiments so onlookers will have a better idea of which Guards are with which regiment. This will also make the parade more interesting when filmed from above by drone.

Veteran Australian cavalry officer Bill "Lucky Lucan" Heslop commented:

We could have done with these parasols when we were facing the fuzzy-wuzzies in our 'squares' in the Sudan.

But then again, we had the Maxim gun and they didn't, so none of us stood in the heat for very long before we had cut all them fuzzies in half with our dum-dum bullets.

Hey Muriel! Fetch me a tinny. I'm parched.