How Did Cornwall Celebrate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee?
As we are sure the whole country is aware, Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her platinum jubilee over a four day bank holiday weekend. She is the first monarch in history to have spent 70 years on the throne and celebrate a platinum jubilee. All across the country people have been celebrating with street parties and parades and the festivities here in Cornwall were nothing short of amazing. Here is how Cornwall celebrated our monarch.
Street Parties
The streets of Cornwall were full of people having afternoon tea complete with scones and cakes galore. Tables were covered with union jack’s and flags were hung from lamposts. You could really sense the unity felt by the whole town. These street parties took place all across Cornwall, whether that be in St Ives, Hayle, or Newquay. Fun was had by all members of the families, with older generations being ble catch up with friends, after having spent many months shielding due to Covid, and the children took full advantage of their two extra days off of school to meet new friends and play new games.
Parades
In some of the bigger towns, parades were thrown with local people showing truly how much the queen had over seen in her magnificent reign. One of the bigger parades was helt in Truro, where the town crier led the way through the streets and was seemed like the whole town followed him. Their end destination was Truro Cathedral was a service was given in honour of the Queen and to show thanks for all of her service. Another notable parade that took place was in Falmouth. The town watched on as the Falmouth Marine Band lead the troops through the town centre, until the reached their destination of the event square, where further festivities took place.
Beacon Lightings
Beacon lightings were happening up and down the country, in fact a total of over 3000 beacons were light around the country and Cornwall was no different. Almost 50 beacons were lit throught Cornish towns. Lighting beacons has been a tradition for royal events such as jubilee’s, weddings and birthdays ever since 1897.
Choirs And Bands
Throughout Cornwall many town choirs payed homage to the Queen by singing the national anthem, and other distinctively royal song’s. Many of the bands covered the new jubilee song “A Life Lived With Grace”, which is originally sang by grammy winner, Gregory Porter and the London Community Gospal Choir. The song was written to show how graciously our queen has served us over the past 70 years, the cornish people really resonated with this song and the choirs and bands that chose to perform it were thoroughly enjoyed by all.
Big Jubilee Lunch At The Eden Project
On Sunday the 5th of June, the Eden Project held a “Big Jubilee Lunch” which had free entry. The lunch consisted of music, performances, food and fun, all based around celebrating the Platinum Jubilee. The entertainment for the day included a samba band, circus performers, and a hige 30-piece live band. Attendees were encouraged to bring their own picknet, which could be enjoyed and any of the long tables, or the various picnic blankets laid out around the arena. Arts and crafts stalls were also available around the venue to ensure that children were entertained all day.
Sam Ryder Performed At The Palace
One thing that i’m sure made us all very proud to be Cornish, was getting together and watch our very own cornish space man Sam Ryder perform at the “Platinum Party at the Palace” held at Buckingham Palace. Sam Ryder represented the United Kingdom in Eurovision this year and got us our best result in a long time. His song “Space Man” shot up the charts after his performance at Eurovison and managed to take the number one spot. After this amazing triumph, Sam was invited to perform at the palace alongside the likes of British rock legends Queen, the casts of hit musicals such as Lin Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom Of The Opera'' and the breathtaking Andrea Bochelli. Projectors began popping up everywhere so tht towns could gether together and watch Sam do his thing on the big screen, and boy did he do us proud.
It’s safe to say that here in Cornwall we had a fantastic time celebrating the Platinum Jubilee. This monumentous triumph for the Queen will be historic and i’m sure we will be talking about how we celebrated for many, many years to come.