Parades, concerts and dessert contest for the 70 years of reign of Elizabeth II

Pomp, pageantry and a dessert contest will center the festivities, scheduled for June 2-5, to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee, that is, the 70-year reign of Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace announced on Monday.

Isabel Alejandra María Windsor was appointed queen on February 6, 1952, at only 25 years old, after the death of her father George VI.

On this date in 2022, the 95-year-old sovereign will become the first British monarch to reach 70 years of reign, now leading 15 Commonwealth countries after Barbados declared itself a republic in November.

To mark the occasion, Buckingham Palace announced four days of festivities that will begin on June 2, the anniversary of Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953 at Westminster Abbey, in the first and so far only ceremony of its kind televised in the United Kingdom.

Among the announced initiatives there are two that will seek to leave a memory of this historical milestone.

One of them, named “Jubilee Green Canopy”, will allow the planting of 60,000 trees throughout the country in 2022.

The other will consist of a national contest, open to all professionals and pastry fans over eight years of age, “to create a new dessert dedicated to the queen.”

The five finalists will prepare their recipe before a jury, which will include the palace chef.

The winning recipe will be made available to the public to be reproduced at neighborhood parties and last “for future generations.”

Scandals and “feeling of togetherness”

With this pompous celebration, the British monarchy, recently eclipsed by the deterioration of the monarch’s health, added to several notorious scandals within the royal family, hopes to generate positive news and improve its image.

The queen’s third son, Prince Andrew, 61, is facing a civil lawsuit in the United States for sexual assault, related to his friendship with the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein and his British friend, Ghislaine Maxwell, accused of sex trafficking of minors.

On the other hand, Prince Harry, 37, grandson of the monarch who together with his wife Meghan shook royalty by announcing his sudden retirement in January 2020 and subsequently denouncing alleged racist comments within the royal family since his Californian exile in March 2021, he plans to publish his memoirs this year.

Symbol of unity throughout the seven convulsive decades in which the United Kingdom has seen from the loss of its empire to its departure from the European Union, the monarch expressed in her Christmas message the wish that her jubilee “is an opportunity to that people enjoy a feeling of togetherness ”.

Music and street art

Launching a four-day weekend, with Thursdays and Fridays declared public holidays for the occasion, the celebrations will debut with a parade through central London.

More than 1,000 soldiers, horses and musicians will march in the traditional Trooping the Color or “Parade of the Banner”, which usually commemorates the queen’s birthday annually but has not been celebrated since the beginning of the pandemic after its cancellations in 2021 and 2020.

Then, perpetuating a centuries-old tradition, 1,500 towns and cities across the country, overseas territories and Commonwealth countries will light a cauldron “to celebrate the jubilee.”

A religious ceremony will be held on June 3 at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The following day, a grand concert will take place at Buckingham Palace in which “the biggest stars in the world will participate to celebrate some of the most important moments of the reign.”

And on June 5, more than 200,000 “neighborhood parties” organized by volunteers throughout the country are planned.

The festivities will be closed by a great march in London that will combine “theater, circus, music and street art.” (I)