A Diamond Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 75th anniversary, but only the 60th anniversary in the case of a monarch (e.g. length of time a monarch has reigned). Traditionally, the diamond jubilee or anniversary of a person was also on the 75th anniversary. This changed with the diamond jubilee of the English Queen Victoria’s reign. There was considerable national unrest when Queen Victoria largely withdrew from public life after her husband’s death in 1861. It was decided to bring the diamond jubilee forward to the 60th anniversary on 22 June, 1897. The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, celebrated on 2 June, 2012, was only the second in the country’s history.
More than 1 million people gathered in central London as the Queen made her final public appearance of the diamond jubilee celebrations.
Here are some pictures of the 4 days
Saturday 2 June
The Queen attended the Epsom Derby
Sunday 3 June
The Big Jubilee Lunch: Building on the already popular Big Lunch initiative, people were encouraged to share lunch with neighbours and friends as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant: This event took place on the Thames and consisted of up to 1,000 boats assembled from across the UK, the Commonwealth and around the world. The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh travelled in the Royal Barge which formed the centrepiece of the flotilla.
Monday 4 June
BBC Concert at Buckingham Palace: A host of famous faces came together to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee against the backdrop of Buckingham Palace.
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons: A network of 2,012 Beacons will be lit by communities and individuals throughout the United Kingdom, as well as the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the Commonwealth. As in 2002, The Queen will light the National Beacon.
Tuesday 5 June
The Diamond Jubilee weekend culminated with a day of celebrations in central London, including a service at St Paul’s Cathedral followed by two receptions, a lunch at Westminster Hall, a Carriage Procession to Buckingham Palace and finally a Balcony appearance, Flypast, and Feu de Joie.
It was a quintessentially British occasion, with weather to match.
The sky over the Thames was a steely, unbroken grey. The vast crowd certainly needed their umbrellas.
The Queen and other members of the royal family have taken part in a flotilla of more than 1,000 boats that made its way along the Thames in the Diamond Jubilee river pageant.
Some 1.2 million people gathered in central London to watch the pageant and cheer on the royal barge, the Spirit of Chartwell, in the centrepiece of celebrations marking 60 years of Her Majesty’s reign.
Bells rang out to mark the start of the pageant, and among those in the flotilla were narrow boats, tugs, Dunkirk little ships, pleasure cruisers and steam boats.
Bridges and embankments were filled with spectators, all desperate to catch a glimpse of the myriad of vessels passing by.
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh were joined on their vessel by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, as well as Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The royal barge, decorated with 10,000 flowers from the royal estates, began its journey from Cadogan Pier in west London.
The 86-year-old monarch wore a silver and white dress and matching coat – an outfit that has been a year in the planning and was designed by the royal dresser Angela Kelly.
Its colour scheme was chosen to stand out against the red, gold and purple hues of the royal barge.
After travelling for around seven miles through the capital, the royal barge moored just past Tower Bridge, as heavy showers began to fall.
The Queen then braved the rain without an umbrella and stood under an ornate canopy to watch the spectacle of the flotilla, that had been travelling behind her.
The boats passed under all 13 central London river crossings from Battersea Bridge to Tower Bridge in what was thought to be the largest live public event ever held in London.
The pageant was brought to a close with an orchestra playing Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia and the national anthem.
With the re-release of the Sex Pistols’ controversial song God Save the Queen, in time for the Diamond Jubilee, former bass player Glen Matlock says what the band’s message was.
Like Pistols frontman John Lydon (previously known as Johnny Rotten), Matlock does not agree with the decision by Universal Music to release a 2012 version of the classic punk track.
What seems inevitable is that God Save The Queen will not have the chart success it enjoyed in 1977 during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, despite a Facebook campaign to win it the number one spot. Nor will it shock to the same degree.
Thirty-five years ago, the Sex Pistols’ second single was controversial for two reasons: its cover and lyrics. The sleeve showed the monarch’s eyes and mouth obscured by the title and name of the band, with the words looking as though they had been taken from newspaper cuttings in the style of a ransom note.
It could have been worse: one of the other designs included placing swastikas over the Queen’s eyes and, in true punk style, a safety pin through her lips.
Unlike some other Pistols’ songs, there was no swearing, but queen was made to rhyme with “fascist regime” and we were told that “she ain’t no human being” and “there’s no future in England’s dreaming”.
Banned
The song was banned on the airwaves: the BBC and commercial TV and radio refused to play it and many record shops and high street chains Woolworths and WH Smith were unwilling to stock it. But it still made it to number two in the official charts, although it has been frequently and convincingly claimed that there was a fix to stop it making the number one spot.
The design of the sleeve, the work of artist Jamie Reid, led to it being named the greatest record cover of all time in 2001 by Q magazine, which a year later ranked it first in a list of the 50 most exciting tunes ever.
It may have been a clever marketing ploy to have the single ready for the jubilee (the original plan was for it to be released earlier, although events conspired against this), but what were the band saying? Did they really want to see the back of the monarchy?
John Lydon certainly wants nothing to do with the re-release, saying it “totally undermines what the Sex Pistols stood for”, before adding in a statement: “I am pleased that the Sex Pistols recordings are being put out there for a new generation, however, I wish for no part in the circus that is being built up around it.”
“We were so far up our own backsides, we just wanted to do what we wanted to do. We weren’t trying to build a guillotine.”
Glen Matlock
‘Mistreated’
Lydon has explained that the song was written to stop the English people from being “mistreated”. A working-class boy, he has always been angered by Britain’s class system, criticising private schools for encouraging snobbery and cultivating a sense of superiority, and damning the upper classes for their tendency to “parasite off the population as their friends help them along”.
As the Pistols’ own website puts it: “The Pistols were inspired by anger and poverty, not art and poetry.”
And the song: “The nation was gripped by Royal fever. The Queen was a national treasure. Everyone loved her, everyone except the Sex Pistols. Or did they? ‘We love our Queen.’ The last sentence is taken from the song’s lyrics.
Reid has called it “probably the last public protest against the monarchy”. But Glen Matlock told Channel 4 News that a song created by four 19-year-olds should not be over-analysed.
“We were so far up our own backsides, we just wanted to do what we wanted to do,” he said. “We weren’t political like the Clash. To try to analyse it is specious. We weren’t trying to build a guillotine.
“Originally, the song wasn’t called God Save The Queen, it was called No Future. It coincided with the jubilee. John (Lydon) told me he didn’t realise it was the jubilee and was disinterested in the jubilee.” And the song’s message? “Don’t be taken like a bloody idiot.”
Nowadays, Matlock seems relaxed about the monarchy. “I like the flags, the pageantry of it all.”
Steve Dior, a musician who has played with all of the band’s members except Lydon, told Channel 4 News: “They were politically naive. They all had separate ideas. Being anti-Queen was just an easy target. But there was an awareness of people being privileged and under-privileged, that it wasn’t a fair system.
“We were definitely against the jubilee at that time. She wasn’t paying tax and was so privileged and we were supposed to be celebrating. There was no way it was fair.”
Punk rock, led by the Pistols, was “about frustration and wanting to change the status quo and it needed a very loud and angry voice to change it,” said Dior. “We wanted a chance and an opportunity – a chance to get on in the world, to not be on the dole and treated as useless – and we had to be obnoxious and in-your-face to get it. “
But he has now changed his tune on the monarchy. “Diana brought in change. Now we have the princes and they’re more accessible. It’s more palatable than it was. The benefits outweigh the negatives and I think they bring a lot to the table, out there promoting this country.”
Who wrote God Save The Queen?
Lydon, Glen Matlock, Steve Jones and Paul Cook are all credited with writing God Save The Queen. Dior, a friend of Matlock, believes the Pistols’ former bassist played the biggest part. But Jones has spoken scathingly abour Matlock’s contribution, saying in 2011 that he was “tired” of his claims that he had written the Pistols’ most famous songs.
“As much as he likes claiming he wrote God Save The Queen, Anarchy In The UK and Pretty Vacant, at the time he hated the words, which John (Lydon) wrote,” he told Hustler magazine.
So what is the truth? According to Matlock: “They were John’s lyrics and my music.”
Who released the song?
A&M had originally intended releasing God Save The Queen, but had a change of heart at the last moment, paying the trouble some Pistols £75,000 to go away and leave them alone.
That was not before some of the singles had been pressed. Their owners are very fortunate: they are now worth thousands of pounds if they are in good condition.
The Pistols then signed to Richard Branson’s Virgin, which released the single in May 1977, shortly before the jubilee.
The Queen is Head of State of the UK and 15 other Commonwealth realms. The elder daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, she was born in 1926 and became Queen at the age of 25, and has reigned through more than five decades of enormous social change and development. The Queen is married to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and has four children and eight grandchildren.
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My family is very united and the strongest person to make this happen was my dearest Grandmother, whom was very family orientated, happy and shared her love with everyone.
She loved many things but even being a Brazilian and never come to the UK, she liked The Queen and all about the Royal family very much. Maybe because they are in one way or another all about traditions, family, union, faith and love, like her.
My Grandmother died yesterday, my heart is in pieces… But I’m sure she is in peace and singing with the angels.
This post is for you Grandma. Love you forever, my Queen!!!
The Queen is Head of State of the UK and 15 other Commonwealth realms. The elder daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, she was born in 1926 and became Queen at the age of 25, and has reigned through more than five decades of enormous social change and development. The Queen is married to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and has four children and eight grandchildren.
-
My family is very united and the strongest person to make this happen was my dearest Grandmother, whom was very family orientated, happy and shared her love with everyone.
She loved many things but even being a Brazilian and never come to the UK, she liked The Queen and all about the Royal family very much. Maybe because they are in one way or another all about traditions, family, union, faith and love, like her.
My Grandmother died yesterday, my heart is in pieces… But I’m sure she is in peace and singing with the angels.
This post is for you Grandma. Love you forever, my Queen!!!
