Celebrating the Platinum Jubilee

A great day out

Some of the Redbridge London Cycling Campaign group

Here in the UK we’ve had a bumper four day royalty-fest. Queen Elizabeth II has now been on the throne for 70 years. Not only is this an astonishing thing in itself, it so happens that it makes her the longest running monarch ever.

There were street parties all over the place. I didn’t attend any because these things tend to be organised on a street-by-street basis, and nobody in my road sorted one out. If I’d have thought about it, I might have tried, but I didn’t, so I didn’t.

What Elaine and I did do though was join a group of cyclists from the Redbridge branch of the London Cycling Campaign. (I hope to write about this in another article, but just for now, where the “campaign” part comes in is that we’d like the Council to take road safety seriously as far as cyclists are concerned. At the moment it’s a bit Darwinian.)

Our aim was to cycle into London, specifically Green Park, and watch the fly past. Here’s what Green Park looks like on Google Maps. Note its proximity to Buckingham Palace (which is known colloquially as “Buck House”):

Unfortunately, everyone else in the UK had the same idea, so we couldn’t get anywhere near Green Park (I think it was closed to more people entering)! So we had to “make do” with next door Hyde Park instead (what a terrible hardship — not!):

We caught a glimpse of some of the fly past, and I could upload the video I took, but to be honest the best ones are on YouTube. Here’s a decent one:

There were two things I didn’t like, and a couple of things I liked a lot.

The first thing I didn't like was that some members of the public were walking around with crowns on their heads, and I didn’t know where they’d got them. They looked very cool, especially as they were gold coloured. They were a significant step up from the paper crowns I usually wear when I’m at a Christmas party. I think a gold crown would suit me a lot. I’d be able to call myself King Tel the First and issue decrees.

The other thing I didn’t like was that there wasn’t much of an opportunity to take many photos. It would have been great to have taken pictures of bunting, the Houses of Parliament and the Elizabeth Tower (formerly known as “Big Ben”).

However, I did get this great picture from the Thames on the way back. As you can probably tell, it was a lovely sunny day (which is quite unusual for a summer’s day in Britain!):

Canary Wharf from The Thames, by Terry Freedman

What I really did like was the atmosphere. Everyone was in a wonderful festive mood. The police were out in force, as you’d expect, but as usual they were really friendly.

I also liked the fact that Queenie was able to attend, and looked so radiant and happy.

And I also liked the fact that we cycled there and back, a total of 35 miles — although my leg muscles protested a bit the next day.

I suppose the next big event of this kind will be the diamond jubilee of King Charles III or that of King William V.

I’ll try and organise a street party.