Paper crowns, Platinum Puds... and the home of Rule Britannia
WHEN the fliers went out a few weeks ago some seriously doubted whether anyone would show up. Could community still exist in a parish like Southdean in Roxburghshire, a few miles from the English Border?
It has lost its school; its local shop too. The nearest pub is miles away and, until recently, the village hall has been out of action due to coronavirus.
For two years, life here happened largely behind closed doors. Some began to lose track of who their neighbours were – hence the name tags on display yesterday.
And was there really an appetite for a Platinum Jubilee garden party? A clutch of naysayers on Facebook scoffed at the thought.
The full extent of their miscalculation was made clear – gloriously so – at 3.30pm. It was then that this rural community of households spread over miles of rolling terrain came together in a tight group – a cardboard cut-out of the Queen standing front and centre – and posed for an aerial photograph taken by a drone.
There were 150 of them, joyously toasting not just Her Majesty but also themselves, their village and the ties that bind them. A fading community? Not Southdean. This was one rediscovering itself in vibrant colour, amidst a sea of balloons and bunting and silliness.
Want a selfie with the Queen? Then step into the village hall’s Buckingham Booth and put on your best smile for the impressively life-like cardboard version presiding over festivities.
Forgotten your tiara? Well, there were plenty to
‘I was drinking at the Coronation too’
borrow yesterday, many of them plastic and sourced at half-price from Poundland.
What the sceptics may have overlooked as they wrote off the chances of a hamlet party attracting a crowd is this place’s pride in Britain runs deeper than most.
From weeks after his birth in 1700, James Thomson, who wrote the poem Rule Britannia, was a son of the manse here. His name appears on his father’s tombstone in the local graveyard. A stained glass window commemorating the poet can still be seen in Southdean Church.
They cherish Thomson in this tiny corner of Scotland, cherish their Britishness and, most emphatically, adore their Queen.
‘I was drinking at the Coronation too,’ laughs Jimmy Johnston, 88, as he downs the remaining beer in his glass. ‘This party is not so different from the one we had then.’
Back in 1953, the shepherd lived in the parish of Solport in North Cumberland. He moved across the Border to Southdean in 1967 and has lived there ever since.
Did he ever imagine that, 70 years after taking the throne, she would still be on it? ‘Not at all, says the widower. ‘I remember the wartime when she and her sister were smuggled away to the countryside. Of course, she was never brought up to be Queen, that must have been the hardest thing, but I could always see that she was a determined woman. She has been a great Queen.’
When pressed, he does recognise subtle differences between the Coronation bash and the Platinum Jubilee party where he is among the most senior of the revellers. For a start, there was no pop music blaring on the sound system. ‘There
was no electricity in rural areas in these days, no running water either. We had a barn dance back in those days and got water from the well.’
His reminiscences serve as a sharp reminder of how much around him has changed in 70 years. Even cars, in those days, were a rarity, he says. And yet, through it all, our monarch has remained constant. Former Southdean minister
Douglas Nicol, who was tickled pink to get an invitation for the jubilee party at his former parish, remembers the Coronation too. Indeed, it is among the 74-yearold’s earliest memories.
Mr Nicol, who grew up in Burntisland, Fife, said: ‘My first memories would be of mum and dad buying a television set in 1953.’ Was he surprised by his former community’s enthusiasm for a jubilee party?
They could, after all, be watching at home with rather clearer pictures on their TVs.
‘Not at all,’ he says. ‘It’s a magnificent occasion. This is a community where every age really does get involved, from the youngest children to the great grandparents and even older.’
Remarkably, each generation approached the party with no cynicism, no political axe to grind. Yesterday was a day for making paper crowns, entering your homemade cake in the Platinum Pud and, after sampling the lot, leaving some room for the ice cream van’s visit.
It was a day for fancy dress, for lurid purple frock-coats, derby day hats and Union Flag waistcoats.
‘I would be one who has every admiration for the Queen,’ says the former parish minister.
‘She has given such a wonderful lead in her service for over 70 years and I think that is going to continue, first with Charles
‘Every age really does get involved’
and then with William. Britain would be immeasurably poorer without them.’
Inside the village hall, party guests write their name on copper leaves provided by local artist Linda Lovatt. Those will be attached to the Southdean Oak, a tree sculpted out of copper wire with a base made out of shards of commemorative china sourced by local antique dealers. It will hang in the village hall as a reminder of the occasion.
But few, surely, will ever forget what happened yesterday. Community roared back into life and people rejoiced at being together, at the astonishing longevity of the only monarch most of us have ever known and at her remarkable ability to bring out the best in us.
‘We’ll meet again,’ she said not so long ago. She was right. And it was wonderful.