JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS

CADS In Holy Cross Church

 

 

 

 

 It has been a busy weekend full of Jubilee celebrations, marking Elizabeth II's 60 years on the throne. not something that we, or she, will see again.  It is quite remarkable when you think of it, 60 years of listening to and advising Prime Ministers from Winston Churchill to David Cameron, sixty years (and four children) of good times and bad times but she has come through it, elegant, graceful and smiling.  We have a lot to be grateful for.  I can never understand what the republicans think we should gain from abandoning an institution that works so well, which unifies the nation as no other institution does, which is above politics, which provides dignity to the office of head of state and above all which earns the country so much in tourist revenue.  Besides it is fun to celebrate from time to time.

Not Our Beacon

This isn't our beacon on top of  St Hilary Down, it's actually a representation of something in 1588 when the Spanish Armada threatened to make England a Spanish province.  Our beacon was very similar and would have been instantly recognizable to those folk of long ago, though they might have wondered why we made so many double barred squares out of planks of wood (pallets) and wondered just what they were for.  This enormous tower of wood was built in the middle of a field and some 300-400 people gathered around it in a big and happy circle.  Behind came a small army of officials (some with 2 way radios) ambulance men, firemen, a steelband man and a seller of hotdogs. The way itself was lighted by paper carrier bags filled with sand in each of which burned a nightlight. The beacon itself was ignited with firebrands made from a fierce, smoking pitch of the sort you see in Robin Hood films. (These, in fact, would have been a considerable improvement on the febrile Olympic specimens). The fire was to be lit at 10.15pm  We counted down the seconds 45, 44, 43, chanting in the darkness.

Cowbridge's Jubilee Queen

The whole scene then was medieval, the people gathered in their encompassing circle around the fire and singing - in this case, the National Anthem - as the flames curled and danced, high on a shower of sparks, far into the night, their faces glowing in the reflected glory of the flames. On the distant hills across the water,  pricks of light, glowed orange and showed where others were engaged in a similar activity. Most impressive, most impressive indeed. I met a couple of friends with a Thermos and we toasted HM's health in tepid coffee. I will have to request a hip flask for Christmas.

It was as well it didn't rain, not that it would have mattered to the bonfire but it would have mattered to we who toasted the Queen's good health and wished here, should it be possible, yet another 60 years and if not then long life for her children and grandchildren. But it did rain the next day, the day scheduled for street parties and maypole dancing, for the eating of cake and the performing of spectacles.

Children Dancing Round the (Indoor) Maypole

The King and Queen Process Through The Church

King and Queen Watch the Party

We produced our own reigning monarchs and King and a Queen and a little Prince and Princess. They moved among us encouraging the troops.  But if they reigned their rule did not extend to the heavens for the rain came down thick and heavy and continuous and the entertainments and festivities had to be moved inside, first to the Holy Cross Church - a fortified medieval construction built sometime in the fifteenth century on a much older site.  There the Cowbridge Amateur Dramatic Society had a stall to beguile likely souls into trying their hand at drama and their feet on the boards.

Later we repaired to a large function room where bands played and the children skipped and hopped around an indoor maypole, entwining each other about with ribbons, while their fond parents ate cake and drank tea from enormous urns, amid a sea of bunting and flags and general red, white and blueness.  We - folk from CADS - also put on a little show on the History of Cowbridge.  The children were still dancing much later when we delved into the recesses of this fine old medieval pub - much older than its patron the Duke of Wellington (of Waterloo fame) to find something a little stronger in which to toast the Queen's good health until it was then time to come home again and to put away our own noble Union Jack that has been doing service at Jubilees and Royal Weddings and the like ever since the first World War.  It was made somewhere in Lancashire of some traditional mixture of cotton or linen and the colours are softer and less garish than much that the modern world is offered from the factories of Guandong Province.