Mammoth celebrations for Diamond Jubilee

Thursday, 07 June 2012

COMMUNITIES across South East Cornwall, in all the main towns and the villages, enjoyed four days of mammoth celebrations in honour of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
They smiled in the sunshine and sang and danced in the rain, the mixed bag of weather doing nothing to dampen people’s spirits.
Beacons were lit all over the area as part of the nationwide chain on Monday, and could be seen for miles around from the tops of church towers, among them St Stephens at Saltash, St Martin’s at Liskeard, and at St Cleer. The beacon at Kit Hill, Callington, was the work of the 1st Stoke Climsland Scout Group, while on the Wooldown at Looe, hundreds gathered for the spectacle. There were street parties galore, hastily re-arranged into church and village halls when the rain came down, while in Liskeard the community turned a soggy picnic in the park into a picnic in tents and under gazebos.
Among the spectacular events was Torpoint’s success at smashing the Guinness Book of Records entry for the longest continuous piece of bunting. For many weeks, residents from tots to pensioners had been making pennants which in the end totalled an amazing 19,648, with a length of 4715.7 metres!
At Looe, 400 cyclists in the Coast to Coast event, stretching along the whole length of the Banjo Pier, were a spectacular sight before they set off on a ride to Braunton in aid of charity. The port also staged its own ‘Royal Flotilla’ on the Looe River.
At St Neot, the WI again produced a huge Jubilee cake as it did ten years ago for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, while at Lostwithiel a new Diamond Jubilee seat in the form of a sculpture made by Robin Guest, and based on the letters in the town’s name, was unveiled.
Special Diamond Jubilee trees were planted in parks and schools across the district, and thousands of Jubilee coins and mugs were distributed to children by town and parish councils as mementos of a wonderful and historic occasion.
l See pictures on
pages 14-15 and 21-28

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