UNITED KINGDOM: Tens of thousands watch the start of a huge royal regatta marking Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee event in central London

Record ID: 593351

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Tens of thousands watch the start of a huge royal regatta marking Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee event in central London
  • Date: 4th June 2012
  • Summary: ROYAL BARGE CARRYING QUEEN TRAVELLING TOWARDS CHELSEA BRIDGE QUEEN ON BARGE
  • Embargoed: 19th June 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Royalty,Royalty
  • Reuters ID: LVA6EI595UNJP6BRMQ37AW7MTLIQ
  • Story Text: Tens of thousands of people lined the river Thames at Battersea on Sunday (June 3) to watch the start of the Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant.
    A thousand vessels of all shapes and sizes took part in the flotilla, which set off from Chelsea in central London bound for the iconic Tower Bridge.
    The Queen and the rest of the royal family embarked her royal barge - a transformed luxury cruiser named the Spirit of Chartwell - at Cadogan Pier opposite leafy Battersea Park.
    Despite grey skies and rain, tens of thousands of people lined the river at Battersea to watch the start of the pageant on the river.
    The flotilla launched with the pealing of the Royal Jubilee Bells on a barge that led the pageant.
    Military boats, D-Day craft, paddle steamers and boats from across the Commonwealth joined the flotilla as it wound through London.
    For the tens of thousands who gathered, it was a chance to be part of an historic day.
    Mike Farr travelled from the north of England to celebrate in Battersea Park. He said he probably wouldn't be able to get much of a view through the crowds, but that he wanted to be part of the atmosphere.
    "We came down for the atmosphere. You've not got a chance of getting by the river today have you, but we came down for the atmosphere really," he said.
    88-year-old Margaret Sowerbotts remembers celebrating the Queen's coronation on the streets of London sixty years earlier, and has tried to join street parties for all major royal events ever since.
    "Much the same atmosphere really. It was all very pleasant then and everyone was being friendly. I think people are more friendly now if anything," she said.
    Up and down the country hundreds of thousands more were taking to streets adorned in red, white and blue "Union Jack" flags for diamond jubilee parties to honour the second British monarch to mark the milestone.
    The only other was her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria in 1897, and while Britain is no longer a superpower whose empire straddles the globe, surveys show the royal family is enjoying its strongest public support in decades.
    The Saturday-to-Tuesday holiday comes just over a year after the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, an extravaganza of pomp and pageantry that led news bulletins the world over and boasted a global audience of up to two billion people.
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