Scots keen to join the party
Fun events across the nation set the seal on weekend of rejoicing
SCOTS yesterday brought the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration weekend to a joyful close with a flurry of community parties.
The weather remained glorious for most over the weekend, with the mercury climbing to 23.2C in Drumnadrochit in the Highlands, making Saturday the warmest day of the year so far in Scotland.
Yesterday, it stayed largely fine, dry and warm for all with temperatures hovering around 23C in some areas.
Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh was ablaze with colour and fanfare as performers from Edinburgh Festival Carnival entertained crowds. The band of HM Royal Marines Scotland and the local Love Music Community Choir performed before the pageant near Buckingham Palace was shown on big screens.
One reveller at yesterday’s event said: ‘We’re here for the music and performers. We heard there was stuff on for the Jubilee, so we came to see what it was like. I’m fairly neutral to it [the Jubilee], but it is a good excuse for a party.’
Edinburgh’s Lord Provost Robert Aldridge said: ‘The Platinum Jubilee is a truly historic event and it was important to find a fitting tribute here in the capital for those who wish to come together and celebrate the occasion.
‘In the tradition of Jubilee street parties our big picnic in the gardens invites citizens to come together to enjoy some fantastic local entertainment and music.
‘Watching the celebrations on the big screen will be a great way for people to be involved and soak up the atmosphere of this extraordinary day.’
British Forces Broadcasting Service presenter Mark McKenzie was the master of ceremonies for the afternoon.
He said: ‘The programme has a real eclectic feel, capturing not only a flavour of Scotland but the Commonwealth and beyond.’
In the gardens, a historic floral clock is this year blooming with a Platinum Jubilee design.
Five gardeners from the City of Edinburgh Council’s park team took four weeks to plant more than 35,000 flowers to have the clock ready for the celebrations.
The clock, which has been in Edinburgh since 1903, will be in bloom until October.
As the fourth and final day of Platinum Jubilee events kicked off, a service of ‘celebration and thanksgiving’ at Glasgow Cathedral was one of several across Scotland to recognise the Queen’s dedication to her role.
The service was the fourth such ceremony held for the Queen at the cathedral during her reign.
The order of service read: ‘Jubilee is not an everyday occurrence but a special occasion which does not happen every year, or even every ten, and today we celebrate the extraordinary reign and devotion Her Majesty has had over us and to us.’ The Queen had previously attended a service of thanksgiving in the Cathedral to mark her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
In his sermon, the Rt Rev Dr Ian Greenshields, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, described the Queen’s life as ‘an example of humble, self-denying service to God and her country’.
Outside of the central belt, well wishers attended an event at Duthie Park, Aberdeen, with the Lord Provost in attendance.
Families with young children took part in games, including hula hoops and obstacle courses, with snacks served up on Union Flag themed plates.
Andrew Bowie, Scottish Conservative MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, attended a gathering at Skene Kirk as well as Donside Community Council’s Platinum Jubilee Picnic at Haughton Country Park in Alford.
Sharing images online, he wrote: ‘What a great weekend. Sorry I couldn’t come to every event but it has been brilliant to see everyone so happy and celebrating.’
Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway celebrated with an expected 2,000 people attending a street party in the heart of the town. Conservative councillor John Denerley said: ‘It was great to see
‘It’s joyful to have so much fun’
so many people from the community come together to show their valuable support to Her Majesty’s service. The weather was great, and so too were the performances that were on throughout the day.’
In Perth, the local council’s inaugural Mela celebration had a jubilee theme with some performers dressed as beefeaters. The parade ended with a community picnic at the town’s North Inch.
Pupils from St Gerardine School in Lossiemouth, Moray, were invited to sing at Lossiemouth Community Council Queen’s Platinum Jubilee picnic.
The school later posted a video showing the pupils performing a rendition of the hit Sing by Gary Barlow, Military Wives, and The Commonwealth Band.
A spokesman said: ‘We are so proud of all the children who came along and joined us with their families. A fantastic turnout and a great afternoon. Well done to all.’
Members of Barnhill St Margaret’s Church, in Dundee, planted a tree as part of the Jubilee Queens Green Canopy and enjoyed a picnic in the sun yesterday.
Interim minister, Reverend Andrew Gardner, was helped by two-year-old Esme Mitchell as they added a commemorative plaque to the newly-planted tree. The congregation of Broughty Ferry Baptist Church also marked the day with a family picnic, including a jubilee-themed treasure hunt for children and a cake featuring a picture of the monarch.
Meanwhile, 70 corgis were assembled on the lawn at Balmoral, one of the Queen’s favourite places. Elsewhere, a group of ten of the Queen’s favourite breed were put through their paces with a ‘corgi derby’ at Musselburgh Racecourse in East Lothian.
The trophy was won by 18month-old Georgie, delighting owner Alison Rumbles, from Haddington, East Lothian. She said: ‘After having two years of the pandemic it’s just so joyful to have something that’s so much fun.’
Mrs Rumbles, a wool fibre artist, had made a needlefelt corgi trophy for the winner.
But rather than take it home with her after her own dog won, she gave it to nine-year-old Claudia Breen, who owns secondplaced Paddy, a distant relative of the Queen’s corgis, saying she had made it for someone else to enjoy.
John Breen, Claudia’s delighted grandfather, said: ‘It could not have been a better day, it was absolutely brilliant.’
WHO would have believed it? Who could have dreamt of the scenes of such unbridled joy, not just outside Buckingham Palace over this extraordinary Jubilee bank holiday, but up and down the country?
From the Union Jacks festooned across suburban streets, to the flags fluttering from poles on village greens and hanging from countless lamp posts, the outpouring of affection has surprised even the most ardent of royalists.
Not even that most familiar of curmudgeons, the British weather, could dampen the spirit and wonder of four spectacular summer days.
Yet many feared that we would celebrate the Queen’s 70 years on the throne with nothing more than a stifled yawn.
With a monarchy divided among itself by family discord and soiled by scandal, there was a sense of ‘how much do people really care?’.
The evidence – from the 18million across Britain who sat down for street parties yesterday to the hundreds of thousands who poured into London for the people’s pageant, the pop concert and the Red Arrows spectacular flypast – was a resounding expression of national unity. Even television audiences, no longer as reliable a barometer of the nation’s mood because of the growth of social media platforms, spoke of the gratitude and respect many Britons have for its monarch.
Close to 12million watched the concert at the Palace on a night when rival attractions included an England football match, 7.5million tuned in for the Trooping the Colour on Thursday
and another five million saw the BBC’s broadcast of the lighting of the beacons. These are not insignificant figures.
Last night as the pageantry and carnival reached its climax, the Mall became a river of friendly humanity flowing between the trees that line the route to the Palace, impatient for one last glimpse of the Queen who thrilled the crowds by coming from Windsor to take their salute.
From the Palace balcony – with its peek of Prince Charles’s vision of a future slimmeddown monarchy of him, Camilla, William, Kate and their children – her view of the euphoria must have been one of bewildered delight.
After the Royal Family’s extraordinary battering – much of it self-inflicted – over the Prince Andrew affair and the recriminations surrounding the exile of Prince Harry and Meghan, what we witnessed this weekend was not just a patriotic love for the Queen.
It was also a demonstration of support for the noblest virtues of monarchy, of public service and of duty.
Many will see it too as a rejection of the celebrity-driven approach of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, once proclaimed as the royals for the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo era, but whose absence from yesterday’s final day of celebrations was barely noticed. The Queen, of course, was the focus – and she certainly played her part, from that wonderful Paddington Bear skit to her balcony curtain calls.
But, at the same time, what these four days have showed us is that talk of a Britain without royalty and that the Queen, as republicans have it, should be ‘Elizabeth the Last’, are simply wrong.
The crowds that cheered Prince Louis’s show-stealing antics and his brother George’s sing-along to Sweet Caroline also cherish the Queen’s link to the Second World War and the last vestiges of Empire, because of its thread to the future.
Right now our love for monarchy is greater and more enduring than ever. But what about that future? Ahead we could be destined for three old or ageing kings. Charles is already in his mid-70s, and if his mother lives as long as the Queen Mother he could be in his ninth decade before inheriting the throne.
William and George may also not accede until they are in their 60s or even their 70s.
But does that even matter? For it has been the arrival of fresh blood in the Royal Family, first with Kate Middleton and then with her and William’s delightful children, which has proved to be such a positive and stabilising influence.
AS the Queen has aged we have seen a democratising of royalty: Charles picking up many of his mother’s duties with William, Kate and (over this weekend) their children, doing much of the glad-handing and fleshpressing so vital in keeping that cord between monarchy and people alive.
Over the years the royal ‘firm’ has ridden out many bumps in the road. The death of Princess Diana in 1997 was one such bump. She was the image of modernity, a princess for the age, famously described (but not by Tony Blair as he claimed) as ‘the people’s princess’.
The Windsors, by contrast, came across then as hidebound, cold and out of touch.
Yet five years later, by the time of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002, the scale of the devotion and enthusiasm for the Queen and her family was remarkable. Ten years later at the Diamond Jubilee that affection was on show all over again.
However the Platinum Jubilee has been conducted against more perilously choppy waters. The saga of the Sussexes and their litany of complaints about the Royal Family – from alleged racist remarks about the colour of baby Archie’s skin, to a lack of sympathy for Meghan’s mental wellbeing – could easily have proved to be a major distraction.
Patience for a couple who have chosen to wash so much dirty linen in public through friendly US television networks has seen the goodwill that once existed towards them diminished. Inevitably, Harry and Meghan’s decision to attend some of the fourday events pushed them centre stage.
However as the weekend progressed even the will-they, won’t-they palaver about whether the Sussexes could make up with William and Kate became unimportant.
When it didn’t happen the public had made up its own mind: It was not prepared to let this desperately sad rift overshadow the tributes to the Queen.
The same was certainly true of Prince Andrew. Barely six months ago it was feared that the sexual abuse
case against him would inflict untold damage on the Queen’s Jubilee. His exclusion from any of the events was barely noted.
In the days and weeks ahead, courtiers will try to make sense of the triumphs and successes of these past days.
they know that our love for monarchy may have been reawakened in the crescendo of all the breathtaking events and that right now its mystery and mystique seems as strong as ever. But it is a fragile concept. In the absence of the Queen from future national events, how secure will public affection for Charles and his heirs be? And can it possibly match all that we have seen for the Queen?
One of the reasons for the success of the Queen’s reign has been her omerta-like silence on every important issue. Charles, on the other hand, has offered his views on a whole range of subjects, which might imperil his hold on the love of the people. He has got one thing right, though.
the roars from the crowd in the Mall yesterday suggested that it approved of the balcony line-up as a taste of things to come.
there will, of course, be changes. One of the things I have learned over the years is the monarchy’s unique ability to adapt – and after reporting on four Jubilees, I would say the omens are good.