I have, regular readers may not be surprised to read, spent much of the day watching the first day’s events of the extended Bank Holiday to commemorate the Platinum Jubilee of The Queen.
Trooping the Colour was very impressive. It is a long time since I have been free to watch it and it was very good to see the enhanced coverage that is now possible with the latest cameras and sound. Because of the nature of today’s event and its adaptation for the Jubilee this meant there was more coverage than in past years of the return to Buckingham Palace and the appearance of the Queen and members of the Royal Family on the balcony. That made for a more complete transmission of the whole event, not something that was rather abruptly terminated for the rest of a Saturday schedule.
One thing I noticed was the fact that uniformed members of the Royal Family were wearing their collars as members of the Order of the Garter. A friend suggested that today may have been specially designated as a collar-wearing day as I cannot recall seeing this done before. I also saw a GBE (Military) wearing his collar whilst being interviewed which seems to bear that theory out.
The BBC coverage was much, much better than it was ten years ago when frankly they did seem not to know what they were trying to do.
That may in part have been due to the different nature of the events with the river pageant and so on being novel. This years the celebration seems more traditional, more predictable than ten or twenty years ago and by being that easier to broadcast, and for viewers to follow.
This was also true of the coverage this evening of the lighting of the beacons across the country and Commonwealth, and also inthe choice of guests to interview on the studio, and indeed what they said.
So a splendid start to the celebrations in both senses, and clear evidence of a lot of enthusiastic engagement by people with events in London or in their local communities.
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I live a mile or so from the southern boundary of Exmoor, and decided to toddle "up top" to watch one of the beacons being lit. I was expecting to see twenty or so die hards huddled round a bonfire, but in the event there were well over a thousand people all merrily chatting away, and several families and others I knew. It is customary for the longest resident parishioner to light the beacon, and a little old lady duly lit ours at 9:45pm.
I also saw a dozen or more beacons lit elsewhere, on Exmoor and Dartmoor just visible to the south, including one at Dunkery Beacon, which is the highest point on Exmoor. All in all, a memorable evening.
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