Rain fails to dampen jubilee pageant

Queen Elizabeth joined a spectacular armada of 1,000 vessels yesterday for the most dazzling display of British pageantry seen on the River Thames for 350 years, watched by cheering crowds celebrating her 60th year on the throne.

Pealing bells greeted the flotilla as the Queen’s gilded royal barge sailed alongside a colourful and eclectic array of boats from leisure cruisers and yachts to a Hawaiian war canoe and Venetian gondolas.

Inclement weather failed to dampen enthusiasm, with hundreds of thousands of onlookers, waving Union Jack flags, massed on the riverbanks to catch a glimpse of the procession along the 11km route.

The Queen, wearing a silver and white dress with a matching coat, smiled broadly and waved to the crowds from the royal barge, ‘The Spirit of Chartwell’, alongside her 90-year-old husband Prince Philip.

They were accompanied on the barge by Prince Charles, Prince William and wife Kate, who wore a vivid red Alexander McQueen dress and matching hat.

Up and down the country, organisers said millions of people attended diamond jubilee street parties in honour of the 86-year-old sovereign, the only British monarch after Queen Victoria to have sat on the throne for 60 years.

“We’re English, we know what the weather is like. We really don’t care if we get wet you know — it’s the jubilee, it’s the Queen, so it’s nice to come up and celebrate it,” said Jackie, a 39-year-old sales consultant who travelled across southern England to watch the Thames pageant.

From New Zealand Maoris who paddled their canoe wearing traditional cloaks to sailors and people dressed as pirates, the flotilla boasted a colourful array of participants from every corner of the planet.

There were even vessels from the 1940 evacuation of British and Allied troops from Dunkirk in northern France.

Organisers said yesterday’s river pageant, reminiscent of a Canaletto canvas from the 18th century, was the largest of its kind since a similar spectacle was held for King Charles II and his consort Catherine of Braganza in 1662.

Other craft included Motor Torpedo Boat 102 on which Allied Forces commander General Dwight Eisenhower and British prime minister Winston Churchill inspected warships before the 1944 D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France.

The flotilla passed under 14 bridges and past famous landmarks including the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the Tower of London, after the picturesque Tower Bridge bascules were raised in salute.

Another boat taking part, ‘Amazon’, featured in diamond jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria, Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother, held in 1897. Historians and commentators say the spectacle helps gives the country a sense of pride at a time when the economy is in recession.