Let’s get this party started
IT’LL be a year-long party for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, it was announced last week. Although the anniversary falls on February 6, the main event is the four-day bankholiday weekend on June 2–5.
Until then, Fortnum & Mason and the Big Jubilee Lunch are inviting public submissions for a new Platinum Pudding; judges include Dame Mary Berry and Buckingham Palace head chef Mark Flanagan. On May 12–15, more than 500 horses and 1,000 dancers, musicians, actors and performers will take part in the Platinum Jubilee Celebration at the Royal Windsor Horse Show (www.rwhs.co.uk), tracing history from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II. Preparations are in hand for the presentation of commemorative medals to frontline members of the police, fire, emergency services, prison services and the Armed Forces, too, and The Queen’s Green Canopy has been under way since October, for which anyone from individuals to schools and city councils can plant a tree sustainably and pin it on the Jubilee tree map (https://queensgreencanopy.org).
As an RAF fly-past will soar overhead, some 1,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians will troop along the Mall to Horse Guards for The Queen’s Birthday Parade on Thursday, June 2 (tickets available by ballot; www.qbp. army.mod.uk), at the same time that more than 1,500 beacons are lit across Britain, overseas territories and, for the first time, Commonwealth countries. On Friday, there’ll be a Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, with the Platinum Party at the Palace on Saturday—a live concert that will be broadcast on the BBC (ticket ballot details to come in February), but not until The Queen has attended the Epsom Derby. On Sunday, the Platinum Jubilee Pageant will see the streets of the capital come alive with art, theatre, music, circus and a dose of pomp, as well as 200 silk flags made using designs by schoolchildren that will flow as a River of Hope down the Mall (www.riverofhope.co.uk). There will also be events for locals at Sandringham and Balmoral.
Post bank-holiday blues are not allowed this year, as July sees celebratory displays of The Queen’s Accession, the Coronation and Jubilee open at Windsor Castle, Holyroodhouse and Buckingham Palace (www.rct.uk).