T4715

Female, age 40 years (born 1971)
Married with two children, healthcare worker
Living in Nottingham but spent the Jubilee weekend with family in West Kent.

SATURDAY 2ND JUNE 2012
This starts as an ordinary Saturday for my family, except that we are busy packing to go away and I am busy washing my daughter’s filthy clothes as she has arrived back from school camp. Listen to Graham Norton on Radio 2 : his guest is David Baddiel who says that it’s on Royal occasions like this that people start to use words they would never usually use, such as “flotilla”.
We set off at about 3.00pm, anticipating an horrendous journey. There is only one house on our road with bunting and the family who live there are from India. I don’t think we would have put anything up ourselves had we been at home, and unless things change drastically over night, I doubt the neighbours will. No one did anything for the Royal Wedding.
The lady who looks after our rabbits says she’s going to a Jubilee party at her sister’s tomorrow, but she doesn’t hold out much hope for good weather.
We spend three hours on the A1 and some motorways. The traffic is pretty good. I see one car bedecked in Union Jacks but nothing else. There are a few more bits of bunting as we drive through the villages and the estate where my parents live. Mum and Dad’s house has a string of bunting across the front window.
They have bought a gazebo especially for the occasion, and their rather nice back garden looks like a village fete, with lots more bunting. Mum shows me the paper chains and decorations she’s bought, a huge bag full. Mum always gets into the spirit of anything, whether it’s Christmas, Halloween or a Royal occasion. To be fair, a lot of what she’s bought is for a Jubilee concert being put on by her choir in a few weeks’ time. My Grandma has also bought a lot things, including a framed photo of The Queen, smiling, for a pound at the pound shop. I spend the evening teasing mum by threatening to draw a moustache and glasses on The Queen.
I’ve bought Mum & Dad union jack mugs, which they like very much, and use immediately.
We go out for a meal in their town. There is a string of bunting across the bridge on the High Street. I wonder if the council budget for the Jubilee only stretched to a visit to the pound shop. A Union Jack flies from the castle.
At home dad has printed off instructions for the correct way to fly a union flag. The jack, he tells us, is the name of the flag pole. I used to know all of this about thirty years ago when I was in Guides. My daughter, also a Guide, knows none of it. It all used to seem very important. I think it probably still is, at least to know about your country and heritage.
The children have a late night. When I come down from putting them to bed Mum has draped a large union flag (I am now wrestling between calling them flags and jacks) across the fireplace, and The Queen’s picture is on the mantelpiece.
“Oh my God!” I say, because it really takes me by surprise. I’m not sure if Mum is joking or not. I suggest we all curtsey as we pass by.
Go to bed and listen to the rain hammering the roof of the gazebo.

SUNDAY 3rd JUNE 2012
Mum wanted to go to London to watch the flotilla but no one else seems very keen. I think it would probably be fun – if you could see it easily above the crowds, if the weather was good, and if the kids weren’t with us. Mum does a nice roast dinner instead, and puts the television on during dinner, which isn’t the usual thing.
I hadn’t intended to watch it, but there’s something magnetising about seeing the Royal Family. I joke about a bit and in an upper crust accent pretend they are saying things. I am also a bit worried about The Queen. She is a year younger than my Grandma, and even though Grandma is fairly spritely, she wouldn’t be able to stand still in the cold for that long.
The Queen gets a bit annoyed with Prince Phillip at one point – he has clearly not heard her, and she mouths at him crossly as she repeats herself. This makes us all laugh a bit.
I think The Duchess of Cambridge looks a bit thin, and my own thought shocks me – I am a slim person myself and hate it when people tut at us skinnies. Also, I don’t usually care what other people, especially famous people look like, and certainly dislike the fuss made by the media about it. Maybe I have become caught up in the moment of it all?
It is quite nice watching the boats though, a real pageant. By the end of it I’m worried about the choir on the top of the orchestral barge. They are drenched and shivering, and I don’t think that’s right.
The children watch a bit of the pageant but lose interest and wander off. They ask a few questions about which Royals are who, but don’t really know who they are apart from the Royal princes, Kate Middleton, and The Queen. Mostly my son (aged 8) is annoyed because it’s too wet to play in the garden.
On spotting Pippa Middleton, my husband shouts, “turn round!” That dress from the Royal Wedding will haunt her forever.
Sort of glad when it’s over as I feel very lethargic. Make cakes for tomorrow, but they don’t turn out that well.

MONDAY 4Th JUNE 2012
Get up at 7.40am, not long after Mum, who is roasting a chicken. It’s still raining.
Spend the morning decorating disasterous cup cakes with red, white and blue icing. I’m not very good at icing cakes so they are rather Jackson Pollack in effect. Daughter sticks cocktail sticks in them with cut-outs of soldiers & phone boxes – very British – in the top of the cakes, and then puts them on my Royal Wedding cake stand. (I only bought it last summer for a birthday party I was having – it was in a sale).
We decorate the house with red, white & blue balloons & union jack paper chains, which fall down a few times. My daughter has drawn a good picture of a corgi – it looks rather smug. My son draws a picture of a queen. The rain stops and he dashes outside with a ball.
Mum and I are busy chopping, slicing and mixing when the guests arrive at 12.30pm. My uncle, aunt, Grandma and great aunt arrive together. My aunt has bought champagne and says, “Well, it’s a special occasion...And it was half price in Sainsbury’s.”
I make a round of tea, because that’s what we always do when we get together. We chat a bit about the pageant yesterday. My uncle watched it but his viewing was interrupted because my aunt and grown up cousin wanted to watch the tennis. My uncle claims that the only reason the Queen managed to stay on top of that boat for hours was because there are actually 5 Queen lookalikes, and I have to admit that she did disappear below deck a few times, so maybe he has a point...
Grandma has come wearing red, white & blue, and my great aunt is also wearing red, white & blue beads. My daughter has hair clips in the same colour. My mum’s wearing an official Olympics scarf I’ve bought her. I also have a scarf but have forgotten to bring it, and I’m dressed in the warmest clothes I’ve got, knowing that we’ll probably have to sit outside at some point.
My son starts up a game of cricket in the back garden, which is curtailed when my aunt hits the ball over the fence twice. The elderly neighbour isn’t celebrating but sends the ball back. The other neighbours, who get the second ball, come to the door in their dressing gowns, my son says. Say no more. A house across the road has a gazebo on the front lawn, and they are celebrating out there under a Scottish flag. Opposite them there is a large Welsh flag.
We all sit in the gazebo for a bit but a very large, dark cloud arrives. We dash inside in the nick of time as it pours down. Mum had thought about having games in the garden but this isn’t going to happen now.
The Jubilee menu is :
• Coronation Chicken
• Potato salad
• Sausage rolls & pork pies
• Other salad
• Crusty bread
• Sherry trifle
• Jubilee cup cakes and tea loaf & Victoria sponge.
• Champagne
The table is heaving and mum still wonders if there’s going to be enough.
There is a lot of chatter whilst we eat. After lunch my aunt opens her bag and produces a really good quiz – lots of those photos with pictures of famous people we have to guess, and questions about the Olympics and royalty. We aren’t that good at the royalty ones. We’re in teams of two, and my aunt has a stash of edible prizes. Me & dad win some Rolos. The whole thing is good fun and we laugh a lot.
More tea is drunk, in fact tea features heavily during the afternoon. The cat gets into trouble for helping itself to some trifle.
It stops raining so we head outside again to sit under the gazebo. My uncle, dad and daughter take photos using the timer functions on their cameras. We try to time it right by pulling party poppers when the timers go off, but it doesn’t quite work, and we have to take loads of photos. There is a lot of shrieking.
The sun is quite warm on our faces and it’s pleasant. I can hear chatter and laughing from the house with the Welsh flag. Then a breeze gets up, and everyone decides it’s a bit chilly to sit outside, so we go back in.
Mum & I make heaps of sandwiches and another bucket of tea.
The tea menu is :
• Sandwiches – egg, cream cheese & cucumber, smoked salmon, ham & tomato, ham & cucumber
• Scones with jam & cream
• More cup cakes / tea loaf (all the Victoria sponge has gone)
The cat helps itself to the crusts from the sandwiches (we’ve decided to go posh), that have been put out for the birds.
My uncle starts to nod off, and decides it’s probably time they went home. The guests leave at 8.30pm.

My husband puts on the Jubilee concert at around the time Tom Jones is on. Dad sets to loading the dishwasher. I have a hoover round, sucking up grass and party popper entrails.
We watch the African Childrens’ Choir and the Military Wives singing the special song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber & Gary Barlow. It’s a nice song, predictable but nice, and ever so slightly emotional to watch.
Dad has found out on the internet that a beacon is being lit at 10.00pm tonight at the castle in town. He also finds out the Prince Phillip is in hospital with a bladder infection, which sets us all off with cries of, “what do you expect, making a 90 year old man stand out in the rain!”
Just as we’re about to leave the house – Mum reckons we need to set off early to beat the throngs at the beacon – my son is struck down with severe nausea, diagnosis “Eaten too much at the party”. This happens every time there’s a buffet. None of us wants to be the one to stay behind with him. My husband does a good job of coaxing him into the car.
Well, so much for crowds of onlookers, the only other people in the car park are teenagers doing handbrake turns. We head up to the castle and there is no one around. The gatehouse is open but there are no posters to advertise the event. It all seems really strange. A couple of women follow us in and ask if we know what’s going on. They think the beacon might be lit at the top of the mound. The mound is the original Saxon Mott & Bailey bit of the castle. I don’t think it’s going to be up there because it’s dark, unlit, and a poor, twisty footpath, and I can’t believe the council wants anyone up there after dark. I don’t fancy going up really. But the others have gone already so I have no choice.
A man and some women call out to me and ask what time it’s happening and where. I tell them I really don’t know, but they follow me up anyway. I still think that maybe it’s not happening at all. I only start to think something might happen when a BBC local news cameraman arrives and sets up his camera beside us. He says it’s not going out live, but he has to call home, and then he tells us his girlfriend has checked the internet and it’s not being lit until 10.15pm because they’re all being lit in relay.
I worry about the children falling over the fence to the ground below. It’s freezing up there. We spot a pole with what looks like a salad bowl on top, on one of the castle towers, with a few people clustered around it. More people join us on the mound, all asking what’s going on / what time is it happening / where is it happening / what’s that thing on the tower? Someone spots a beacon glowing orange in the distance, and then another and another. I start to feel a bit excited. My daughter can’t see any of the beacons, and me and a lady try to get her to focus in the distance. My daughter has been looking at street lamps.
Suddenly there is some movement on the tower and from the green below us, a half-hearted countdown. The beacon is ablaze and a hearty cheer goes up followed by a very British round of applause. I feel quite proud and consider singing the National Anthem, just because something should mark the occasion. But it’s not me to sing out loud in front of strangers. The people on the green sing it very quietly, it’s barely audible up here. But I think it’s a nice thing to do, and I like the fact that complete strangers have come together for it.
My son has forgotten that he’s supposed to be at death’s door.
We head for home & watch Prince Charles’s speech, and remark that the Queen looks sad about Prince Philip. The crowd cheers for him at Prince Charles’ request, which is amazing, as most of the time people mock Prince Phillip. It’s as if deep down, people in the crowd have a soft spot for the old man, or are at least mellowed by the general feeling of good-will around tonight. We watch The Queen light the final beacon – I’m not sure about the lighting method, it looks more like she’s drawing the National Lottery – and the fireworks from Buckingham Palace. It’s a bright way to draw it all to a close.
My husband asks who’s paying for all of this, and points out it’ll be the taxpayer, but we both just shrug in an “oh well” kind of way.
Go up to bed and hear people laughing and having a good time in a garden somewhere. This sort of cheering is usually only observed on TV programmes and there’s something surreal about hearing it in real life.

TUESDAY 5th JUNE 2012.
Get up to see Dad picking up soggy party poppers from the lawn.
Unintentionally watch the parade and church service in St. Paul’s. I’m an atheist but all this clearly means a lot to The Queen. My son watches a little bit and asks if you can be The Queen if you’re not a Christian, and I say that she’s head of the Church of England too. This is all too puzzling for him, and he wanders off. My daughter watches a little bit but has had enough of Royal things for now. I don’t know why I keep watching it, I’m like a moth to a lightbulb.
Mum & Dad get the Telegraph, which is full of people ranting about the shoddy and “lightweight” broadcasting of the pageant by the BBC. Honestly, don’t these people have anything more serious to get angry about?! It was a “lighthearted” afternoon, why did it need a Dimbleby to oversee the proceedings?
Mum insists that we eat lunch in the garden, under the gazebo. It’s not exactly warm out there though. She had planned that we’d have yesterday’s leftovers but there’s not much left so she has to add some quiche and a pizza. I have not eaten any veg for a couple of days.
The children are spending the rest of half term with my parents, and my husband & I leave them just before 3.00pm. We do have work to go to this week, but we try not to look too pleased about being apart from the kids and having the opportunity to have a social life again. The kids don’t hide their pleasure from us. As we leave the Prime Minister is saying a few words about The Queen on TV – it has been a refreshing change not to have to look at him throughout the weekend, and I think it only right and proper that he has stayed out of the way.
The journey home is quiet and quick. I feel satiated by Jubilee broadcasts so we listen to CDs rather than the radio. My husband asks if I’m a Royalist at heart. I say I don’t think the Royal Family is a bad thing, and it’s good for tourism. They don’t do any harm, they can’t help who they are, it’s a part of who we are as a country, and it’s quite nice to have a figure-head who isn’t political or stupid like a lot of Prime Ministers. Perhaps that’s the appeal – to have someone who is sensible and stately at the top, someone with a strong sense of duty and morals, for people to respect, in a time when respect has gone out the window? Most of the time I am indifferent to them, but I don’t wish them any malice.
My husband says his socialist late granddad, and his other socialist relatives don’t approve at all of a family inheriting wealth that they haven’t worked for.(Though I bet there are socialists out there who do the lottery). Sometimes I don’t agree either with that sense of entitlement. I point out to my husband that they probably wouldn’t be too happy about the time we watched the Changing of the Guard on a trip to London, and it was all his idea to go and he got quite excited. But I do tell him well done for watching so much of it all weekend, given his socialist roots. I know he enjoyed himself really. We drive on in silence. Later, I think that the Royal Family have changed a bit in that respect – at least Prince William rescues idiots from the sea, and I can’t see many socialists doing anything as dangerous as that.
We collect the rabbits. The lady says she went to her sister’s party but it was a washout. The street party in her village was better.
Back home there is no sign that anything ever happened on our street. I phone mum to say we’re back safely and she says she watched the flypast. Part of me wants to watch it on the news but I am all Jubilleed-out. Instead we watch some irreverent stand up comedians on TV whist eating my prize Rolos. The comics mock the Royal family in much the same way that I would usually do, but I don’t find it that funny tonight.
I’m glad we joined in. Firstly, as our childrens’ headmaster has written in a newsletter announcing a Jubilee party at school next week, whatever your views on the monarchy, the event marks an important occasion in our nation’s history. Who are we without a history? And secondly, it’s been an excellent excuse for a good old knees up, something the British excel at.