please empty your brain below
Gosh, yes, I watched the Pageant from Waterloo Bridge and I don't think I've ever been so wet as I was afterwards.

tops | 03.06.22 - 6:42 a.m. | #

I only have to wait another five years and my Silver Jubilee pint glass will be 50 years old.

That realisation suddenly made me feel very old.

(interestingly, it does have a crown on it, but not as a crown mark)

Simon | Homepage | 03.06.22 - 7:41 a.m. | #

Some of your readers, me included, remember the Coronation which started it all.

John | 03.06.22 - 7:56 a.m. | #

I can't believe I was on the same bridge as DG! Highlight of my Jubilee, for sure, if only I had known.

Nige | 03.06.22 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Saw a few of the planes flying over Lord's cricket ground yesterday, then went to Golders Hill Park in the evening for a the lighting of the beacon and a very good firework display

I can't remember what specifically happened for the previous 3 jubilee celebrations!

Mikey C | 03.06.22 - 8:14 a.m. | #

I was also on the velodrome footbridge! We were the ones with a toddler asleep in a buggy who missed the whole thing.

I did think to myself, I wonder if DG is here - should have accosted some strangers!

TomH | 03.06.22 - 8:14 a.m. | #

If the Typhoons took 2 minutes to travel from QEOP to Buck House, their jet engines must've only just been ticking over.

dg writes: Stratford 1.04, Buck House 1.06.

Frank F | 03.06.22 - 8:17 a.m. | #

2002 deserves a mention of Brian May playing God Save The Queen on the roof of Buck House.

Rob Gullen | 03.06.22 - 8:29 a.m. | #

I was on the bridge by the Velodrome as well! I banked on the flypast following the A12 but hadn't expected to be exactly underneath.

paul draper | 03.06.22 - 9:22 a.m. | #

I had a good sideways-on view from the south. The dispersal over west London was a grand thing with groups banking off in various directions while remaining in formation. This included the waves of helicopters and Chinooks turning back towards me in an Apocalypse Now sort of way and passing straight overhead. There was a lot going on all at once, beautifully choreographed, and it didn't disappoint.

NickW | 03.06.22 - 10:08 a.m. | #

Nothing much happened in 1977, as far as I can remember. I know on one hand I was disappointed we didn't have a street party - but being 14 there was no way I was going to attend if we had!

I missed 2002 being away at the time, and only just made 2012 - flying into Heathrow just in time to dump my bags at home and rushing back into London to see the flotilla!!
I didn't - but I did hear the cheer as it went past from somewhere behind Hays Galleria!!

I went to see our local beacon being lit but otherwise I'll just stick to the TV this time - you get a much better view!

Cornish Cockney | 03.06.22 - 10:09 a.m. | #

I watched the flypast from my balcony and could follow the aircraft on the horizon for most of their journey, from roughly the Olympic Park to when the Red Arrows switched off their smoke, leaving wavey stripes above the London Eye. The helicopters stayed with me a while longer as they were peeling off to the southeast. Quite the spectacle, even from afar.

While it’s a cool experience to join the crowds on The Mall, it’s sufficient as a one- or twice-off.

commonliner | 03.06.22 - 10:52 a.m. | #

I saw some of the helicopters, including the Chinooks, heading east over Crystal Palace Park

Stephen | 03.06.22 - 11:27 a.m. | #

I was also on that same footbridge near the Velodrome. Great minds think alike!

Whilst I was there, I also visited the exhibition inside the Velodrome. Thanks to dg for writing about it a couple of months ago or I'd never have realised it was there!

ldjb | 03.06.22 - 12:23 p.m. | #

What I learned from the 1977 Silver Jubilee, when I was 10, was that crepe paper is coloured with water soluble dye.
We had red, white and blue crepe paper hats.
It rained.
We ended up with blue and red dye down our faces!

AndrewR | 03.06.22 - 2:32 p.m. | #

Sounds very similar to the flypast for the centenary of the RAF in July 2018 - crowds in the Mall, royals on the balcony, the Red Arrows etc - only that time the Typhoons were in a 100 rather than 70 formation. That time was quite enough for me, so I gave this one a miss (although I did enjoy the music in the service at St Paul’s).

Baldassaro | 03.06.22 - 2:33 p.m. | #

I didn’t bother to watch the lighting of the beacons on TV. When you’ve seen one beacon you’ve seen ‘em all!

Bob S | 03.06.22 - 4:55 p.m. | #

There's a lot of 'milling' going on in central London today, generally purposeless because there's nothing to see. The further you walk down The Mall the more squished it gets - more a trial than a treat.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 03.06.22 - 5:54 p.m. | #

I experienced this year's flypast in Claybury Park (blogged by you on 27/01/2018). Parts of the park are sufficiently elevated that the aircraft were in sight for several minutes, long enough to see the Red Arrows switch on their smoke as they approached the City's skyscrapers on the far horizon.

Visited Ham House today and celebrated with what turned out to be the National Trust's Jubilee Cake - sponge cake with lots of cream and fruit on top.

Alan S | 03.06.22 - 11:30 p.m. | #

A long-standing, half-surpressed number surfaces.

I'll occasionally find myself working in the fields wondering why I am remembering this song and its appearance on Top of the Pops, and what was going on with people putting up with it at the time.

Discovered today it was Neil Innes.

Nonplussed, and forgiving.

tops | 03.06.22 - 11:39 p.m. | #

2019's Trooping the Colour flypast was, IIRC, curtailed due to bad weather, so it's been a good few years since we've had a decent aerial display in East London. (I missed this year's entirely due to being out of town.)

martin | 04.06.22 - 7:15 a.m. | #

We saw three helicopters in the distance over Orpington from Danson Park in Bexleyheath as part of the dispersal. The newspapers had hyped it up to be more!

Kathryn | Homepage | 04.06.22 - 7:58 a.m. | #

I can confirm 17 helicopters flew in, but they didn't all disperse in the same direction.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.06.22 - 8:04 a.m. | #

Glad to see I am not the only one of your readers who remembers the Coronation. Like many other families we got our first television especially for it: a 12" screen I think. There was a big street party. I think perhaps we also had a street party for the 1977 Jubilee.

g.chingford | 05.06.22 - 1:53 p.m. | #

I worked near the Barbican for nearly 10 years. The roof terrace of One New Change is a good place from which to watch royal fly-pasts as it's directly in line with The Mall and Buckingham Palace.

In 1977 I was at Uffington (Oxon) for the beacon-lighting. The idea then was that the beacons were lit in a chain, starting from (I think) Windsor. Each was lit when the officials could see the light from the predecessor in the chain. It was not very effective, as there was so much other light (street lights in distant towns and villages, etc.) that the crowd couldn't identify the distant beacon. Presumably the officials could, as the Uffington beacon was lit at about the time they said it would happen.

This time, I gather all were lit approximately simultaneously.

John M. | 05.06.22 - 10:17 p.m. | #











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