The Diamond Jubilee River Pageant

Despite typically dreary English weather, hundreds of thousands of revellers lined the River Thames on Sunday to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant. I was but one of them, which meant that even despite my enthusiastic 10.30 a.m. arrival at Embankment, A LOT of people had already made it there before me.

Not a problem. My motley crew and I had a secret weapon: flimsy Argos chairs. Thus we promptly began to set up camp at the base of a mighty tree, unfurling our trusty steeds and going all ‘Sir Hillary’ on the asses of the other non chair-wielding chumps around us, laughing from our new vantage points and basking in our perfect view of the river. ‘Ha! These fools think they can just stand and see the water!’ we cried, tucking into a victory caramel biscuit which had never tasted so sweet.

Then we waited. For four hours. But it was fine, because the Great British public were with us, and the one thing that we Brits do with great aplomb is stand in formation for prolonged periods of time. So form an orderly mess we did, until the point at which the north bank of the river resembled more of a flesh porridge than a road. ‘Damn! We should have brought something to stand on!’ we heard from the mouths of the late-coming droves. Yeah, well shoulda woulda coulda, my friends.

It didn’t matter though, because when the boat procession finally began, we all forgot our differences and became one. No longer were we a divided society of chair-wielders and plainfoots; we were a commonwealth of fervent supporters. Ambassadors – if you will – for our long-lived and noble Queen.

And how we went for it. Flags were waved in their thousands, and our cheers grew louder for each new vessel as it passed. Of course, when the Royal family finally arrived in shot, we used every last decibel at our disposal, filling the air with the ear-piercing sound of horns and wolf-whistles, and barrelling out God Save the Queen in glorious unison.

But just then, I heard a voice from below: ‘What can you see!?’ a plainfoot pleaded to me. That’s right, amidst all the excitement I had forgotten that it was only us lucky few that could even see this wondrous event take place.

‘Describe it to me so that I might feel I have lived it as well,’ she continued, and in the spirit of the day, I obliged. Oh how you could see her eyes become alight with imagination, dreaming of what it must have been like for us aloft our four-for-ten-pounds Jubilee platforms. ‘God bless you, kind sir! I will tell tales of your compassion to my people,’ she cried, before being swept away by the turbulent waves of the crowd.

As the last few boats passed, I couldn’t help but feel proud of the Great British spirit I had witnessed, and whatever you feel about the Royal family, the atmosphere was something Her Royal Highness will no doubt have felt very proud of too.

Image by Annie Mole courtesy of Flickr