TODAY'S CELEBRATIONS

THURSDAY JUNE 2: THE QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY PARADE

QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY PAR

■ Starts at 10am at Buckingham Palace, moves down The Mall to Horse Guards Parade, with members of the Royal Family on horseback and in carriages joining at around 10.30am.

■ Event turns into traditional Trooping the Colour which has marked the monarch’s official birthday for 260 years.

■ The colour is being trooped by the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards – The Prince of Wales will take the Salute, joined by Prince William, a Colonel in the Regiment and Princess Anne - with up to 1,450 officers and soldiers from the Household Division together with 400 Army musicians and around 240 horses.

■ The Duchess of Cornwall, The Duchess of Cambridge, The Earl and Countess of Wessex and children, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence will join other royals and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children to watch from the Major General’s Office.

ROYAL GUN SALUTE

12.52am: 82 rounds in Hyde Park 1pm: 124 rounds at the Tower of London.

■ WHERE TO WATCH

Public can watch the spectacle from The Mall – lined with 200 soldiers from the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards – or on large screens in nearby St James’s Park, Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh or Bute Park in Cardiff.

■ After the parade the following royals will flank the Queen on the Buckingham Palace balcony to watch a special 71-aircraft flypast. The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children, The Earl and Countess of Wessex and their children, The Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, The Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra.

JUBILEE BEACONS

■ At 9.25pm, the Queen will lead the lighting of the Principal Platinum Jubilee Beacon at Windsor Castle in a dual ceremony with the Duke of Cambridge outside Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty, with a symbolic touch of the Commonwealth Globe of Nations, will begin a lighting sequence from Windsor to London, finishing with a spectacular 21-metre ‘Tree of Trees’, right, featuring 350 British native trees with stunning lighting installations and projections on to the front of Buckingham Palace.

■ This will prompt beacons to be lit in 3,000 towns, villages and cities throughout the UK. Beacons are also lit in each of the capital cities of Commonwealth countries.