This is my final post on the events of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Weekend.

For those who missed it, I have covered Trooping the Colour, the Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s and the Party at the Palace concert.

Today’s recap is about the fantastic pageant in central London and festive street parties around the nation on Sunday, June 5, 2022.

Before I go into that, however, there are two more things to cover from earlier in the weekend.

The first concerns lunch at the Guildhall following Friday’s Service of Thanksgiving.

On Monday, June 6, Dan Wootton wrote about it for the Daily Mail (emphases mine):

The sense of disappointment within London’s grand Guildhall was palpable.

One of the rooms hosting dignitaries and other invited guests had been left without a member of the Royal Family present to mingle and chat as promised.

The mood turned frosty when the upset attendees, who had expected to be hosted by a minor royal as they were served English sparkling wine and a buffet of traditional dishes like coronation chicken and smoked duck, were told by organisers it was because the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had turned down an invitation to attend.

But it wasn’t just the public who were stunned at Harry and Meghan’s notable snub following an awkward appearance at St Paul’s Cathedral for the Service of Thanksgiving.

That carefully choreographed event had been derailed by the boos received by Harry and Meghan from onlookers as they entered and then departed the church where Princess Diana famously married Prince Charles – the worst nightmare for courtiers who have long feared normally polite monarchists might vocally turn on the couple after their unrelenting attacks on the institution since Megxit.

I’ve learned some members of the Royal Family and many senior courtiers were horrified at the detached and cold appearance by the exiled couple, who had also made the decision to fly out of the country before the Queen had even made her historic Buckingham Palace balcony appearance, alongside Charles, Camilla and the Cambridges, on Sunday evening.

Lady Colin Campbell spoke with Wootton on his GB News show Monday night. She, too, said the Sussexes were snubbed:

She added that the couple were deeply unhappy because the Jubilee has outshone their own ‘brand’:

At least Her Majesty was able to meet Lilibet, who celebrated her first birthday at the weekend.

In another news event not widely covered, the Queen’s Baton Relay arrived in London on June 2 in advance of this summer’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham:

Commonwealth Games minister Nigel Huddleston (wearing a red tie) met with some of the participants on Saturday at the Tower of London:

The Commonwealth Games will be starting in Birmingham on July 28:

Street parties

At lunchtime, the weather was dismal in many parts of the UK.

The Mail on Sunday reported:

Royal superfans are set to brave the elements on the final day of the Queen‘s Platinum Jubilee weekend, amid fears today’s £15million Pageant will be battered by thunderstorms.

The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for heavy rainfall and potentially even hail across much of England and Wales from midnight until 6pm this evening.

Forecasters have said that the bad weather – including downpours of up to 50mm an hour, and even hail – may cause travel disruption and flooding in some places, with parts of London and the South East, the Midlands, East Anglia most at risk.

In London, we had what I call Coronation Day weather. Coronation Day was on June 2, 1953. It was cold, damp and rainy.

The greatest of these lunch parties was the Big Jubilee Lunch at Oval Cricket Ground in Vauxhall, south London. Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, represented the Royal Family.

The Mail on Sunday has an article with so many photos, you will have felt as if you’d been there.

An excerpt follows:

Prince Charles today said he hopes ‘bickering’ does not return to Britain after the Platinum Jubilee generated a feeling of ‘togetherness’ across the country.

The Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall are tucking into the Big Jubilee Lunch at the Oval cricket ground in South London, where they marvelled at a 20ft tea table made entirely of felt and cut a big cake before toasting Her Majesty. 

Guests at the lunch have said that the future king remarked: ‘When it comes to Monday are we going to go back to all the bickering again? Let’s hope we don’t do that.’

That is one thing Charles and I agree upon. Unfortunately, Monday’s confidence vote about Boris Johnson put paid to that.

As for the rest of the nation attending street parties:

Britons are attending a record-breaking 12million parties and lunches today as they celebrate the Queen‘s astonishing seven-decade reign. 

Dear me. How was that even possible?

And there were more lunches, not only in the Commonwealth nations:

More than 600 Big Jubilee Lunches are being planned throughout the Commonwealth and beyond – from Canada to Brazil, New Zealand to Japan and South Africa to Switzerland.

How wonderfuul was that?

Meanwhile, in Windsor, Prince Edward and Sophie, Duchess of Wessex, attended a ‘long lunch’ just outside the castle gates:

… the Earl and Countess of Wessex are expected to join thousands of the Queen’s neighbours for a record breaking ‘long lunch’ on the Long Walk outside the gates of Windsor Castle on the final day of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

Here is a photo montage of street parties and lunches across the UK, which the Eden Project has helped organise in an attempt to bring the nation together in unity:

Street parties are renowned for delightful sweet treats:

For once, Scotland had better weather than England.

Despite all their independence rhetoric as well as the SNP-run councils and the Scottish Parliament, Scots came out in force to celebrate the Queen.

Edinburgh, the capital, took the cake, according to The Times:

In Edinburgh, the street party capital of Scotland, neighbours laid tables and chairs outside their homes and shared a small mountain of home baking, wine and champagne to toast the Queen’s landmark achievement.

Residents of 32 streets applied to Edinburgh city council to ban traffic for the afternoon, the most of any local authority area, which allowed long lunches and children’s games to take place in safety …

In Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, about 300 adults and children enjoyed a picnic in the town’s Overtoun Park, as part of the Big Jubilee Lunch. With the Duchess of Rothesay as patron of the organisation, an estimated 85,000 similar events were taking place around the UK at the same time …

Eugenie Aroutcheff, organiser of the Rutherglen event, said the eco-friendly project in the park was designed to combat social isolation and loneliness in the community.

Following the pandemic, the emphasis this year is on getting neighbours and friends back together again.

I will have more on street parties in general. The consensus among some people is that we should not need a Jubilee in order to organise street parties. I could not agree more, especially as the next Jubilee is likely to be decades away — unless the Queen shows exceptional longevity. It’s possible. Her mother died just days before her 102nd birthday.

The Platinum Jubilee Pageant

There was no time for the thousands of people organising and participating in the Platinum Jubilee Pageant to have a too leisurely sit-down lunch:

They were all busy making their final preparations for the last official event of the weekend:

In all, 10,000 people made this spectacular pageant possible. It was amazing, and I’m not all that keen on this sort of thing.

This was the parade route, which is quite long:

The theme was honouring the Queen and each of the seven decades of her reign:

The Royal Marines had been part of the official events since Thursday. They must have been exhausted. Here we can see a short video about their many rehearsals:

This video shows a few of the Pageant performers and the floats involved:

The acts were magnificent. The costumes and choreography were so creative. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Here’s the full three-hour video as seen at the end near the Victoria Fountain in front of Buckingham Palace. All the Royal Family members and most of the politicians and dignitaries who were at Saturday’s concert were there:

The Queen’s third balcony appearance

Around 4 p.m., news emerged that the Queen would be travelling in from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace for a final balcony appearance, bringing an end to four days of celebrations.

Four generations of the Royal Family appeared on the balcony: the Queen, Prince Charles and Camilla, Prince William and Kate and their children.

One must object, however, to Prince William’s entreaties the night before about saving the planet as he and his family took a private helicopter to London:

Hmm. Perhaps it’s not the best look.

The Queen looked stunning in an emerald green outfit. She appeared before the crowd around 5:10 p.m.:

The crowds in The Mall ran to the palace as soon as her Standard (flag) went up sometime after 4 o’clock. When the Standard flies above any Royal household, the Queen is in residence:

Agence France Presse had lovely photos:

Chart-topper Ed Sheeran and a few other singers sang the National Anthem. Afterwards, Sheeran swiftly but sincerely wished everyone a safe journey home. The crowd dutifully dispersed. By then, the weather had improved.

The Queen’s influence is worldwide

Incredibly, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee was celebrated even in countries that are not part of the Commonwealth, e.g. Thailand, Switzerland, Poland, Morocco and Portugal:

What a wonderful four-day weekend it was!

Long live our gracious Queen! Long live our noble Queen! Long live the Queen!