Joyous celebration of a remarkable Queen
The sun came out, the rain stayed away, and the nation came together for the first day of the celebrations to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Some feared that, as with the Diamond Jubilee river pageant in 2012, unseasonal June showers would drench the day’s festivities. In the event, most of the country was rewarded yesterday with glorious weather befitting this joyous occasion.
The Queen, flanked by her cousin the Duke of Kent and wearing the Brigade of Guards Brooch, inspected troops from the Buckingham Palace balcony, while on Horse Guards Parade the Prince of Wales took the royal salute on his mother’s behalf.
The Princess Royal joined the magnificent procession, resplendent in her Colonel of the Blues and Royals uniform, along with the Duke of Cambridge, who played a prominent role as colonel of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards. It is reassuring that the monarchy’s future is in such safe hands.
The enormous crowds massing on the Mall were a testament both to the gratitude that so many feel towards Her Majesty, and to the monarchy’s ceremonial power.
Some 1,400 soldiers, 400 musicians and 200 horses Trooped the Colour, a ritual which has marked the Sovereign’s official birthday since the reign of George II, and part of the significance of the day’s events surely lay in their familiarity.
It has become fashionable to question the ceremonies of the British state, particularly those that owe their origin to the distant past. But there is a great deal of comfort to be found in continuity, especially when so much else is in a constant state of flux.
For the crescendo of the Birthday Parade, the Queen and other members of her family, as is customary, appeared on the balcony to witness a spectacular fly-by of more than 70 aircraft – past and present – featuring everything from Apache helicopters and Typhoons to Lancaster bombers, Spitfires and the iconic Red Arrows.
Ahead of the festivities, the Queen had called on the nation to create “many happy memories” over the course of the Jubilee weekend, a hope that was certainly answered in the street parties and impromptu gatherings that have already taken place up and down the country. Many Jubilee decorations sold out entirely; retailers across the nation reported shortages of bunting and other patriotic paraphernalia.
Following another longstanding royal tradition, the celebrations yesterday culminated in the lighting of more than 3,000 beacons across the UK and the Commonwealth – beginning in Nuku’alofa, Tonga’s capital, and Apia, the capital of Samoa, and ending in Belize in Central America. Beacons were also lit simultaneously on the four highest peaks of the United Kingdom to symbolise the four nations combining in tribute.
Royal watchers may have obsessed over the return to the UK of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. But the focal point of all this pageantry was, of course, the Queen. The country has never before celebrated a Platinum Jubilee, and is unlikely to do so again – or at least not for many centuries.
Her Majesty is remarkable not just for her quiet dedication to her duties, but for carrying them out without complaint for so long. She is the world’s third longest-reigning monarch in recorded history, and will soon become the second.
Yesterday’s festivities also coincided with the 69th anniversary of Her Majesty’s coronation in 1953, reminding her subjects of the decades of tumultuous change that her reign has seen.
When Her Majesty ascended the throne, wartime rationing remained in place and the Royal Mint was still issuing farthings and shillings. Winston Churchill was prime minister, Josef Stalin was leader of the USSR, and Harry S Truman was in the White House. Most British citizens alive today will have no recollection of a time before the Queen’s reign.
Yet throughout that long and turbulent period, Her Majesty has remained a symbol of strength and stability – a figure apart from the rough and tumble of Westminster – and our constitutional monarchy an anchoring force for the entire United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
To many people, its unifying role will perhaps feel even more significant than usual now, at a time of great public disillusionment with day-to-day politics, and with many other national institutions in a state of apparent decline.
The global outpouring of joy and goodwill triggered by the Platinum Jubilee has shown once again that the monarchy remains in rude health. This weekend is witnessing not just the honouring of a remarkable reign, but also a triumphant celebration of the institution Her Majesty has embodied so gloriously for 70 years.
The enormous crowds massing on the Mall were a testament to the gratitude that so many feel towards the Queen
Throughout that long and turbulent period, Her Majesty has remained a symbol of strength and stability