The Queen’s 60th Diamond Jubilee is to be celebrated by millions across the nation this year with the extended Bank Holiday in June 2012 quickly becoming the focus of lots of activities.
The usual late May Bank holiday is being moved to Monday 4th June and an extra “Diamond Jubilee Bank Holiday” has been announced for Tuesday 5 June. So, the extended Bank Holiday will last from 2nd June to 5th June.
During this extend break there will be a special pageant on the River Thames on Sunday 3 June when Queen Elizabeth II will lead a flotilla of a 1,000 boats; on the 4th June 2,012 beacons will be lit by communities across the UK and over the Bank Holiday thousands of Diamond Jubilee Street Parties are already being planned up and down the country to celebrate the Queens 60th reign.
But, at least one village is planning its own unique twist on the celebrations and has decided to combine a street party with a the publication of a book crammed with photographs illustrating the changes the village and it’s residents have undergone during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. In the run up to the Holiday Week the residents (under the leadership of a well organized committee) have commissioned professional photographers to take photos of the current residents, their families, their houses and local church, school and lots of everyday activities that take place in the village. These contemporary photographs will be catalogued with historic photographs to show how things have changed in the village of the last 60 years.
The finished book will be revealed during the Jubilee Bank Holiday and copies sold to raise funds for the village and the restoration of the local church.
Diamond Jubilee Design
Illustrative of how things have changed during Elizabeth’s reign extracts from the book will be made available on the Village Web Site (every village seems to have one these days) and electronic copies of the book will be sold pre-loaded onto USB memory sticks that have been printed with the details of the village and the official Diamond Jubilee Emblem (designed by 10 year old Katherine Dewar).
Printed USB memory sticks have recently been used for all manner of promotional activities and are commonly used to distribute music, book and photographs on but it’s interesting to see they have also infiltrated the psyche of the local village church and WI’s. Only a few years go USB sticks (USB Flash drives as some people prefer to call them) have, like of technologies, crossed over from being a techie product that is only used by geeks to become part of our everyday life. It’ll be interesting to see in another 60 years time if anyone remembers let alone has a USB memory stick.
