Hurray for the holidays!
Extra day off school thanks to the Jubilee, but not for
everyone …
Most Scottish school children will be enjoying an extra-long
June break this weekend, in honour of the Queen's Diamond
Jubilee.
Elizabeth II has been on the throne for 60 years. She is just
the second British monarch to have reigned for this long - Queen
Victoria ruled for just over 63 years.
Schools all over Scotland will close for an extra holiday day on
Tuesday. But spare a thought for the poor pupils of Falkirk and the
Western Isles, who will be at their desks. Those councils say they
can't afford to give public workers an additional day off so
schools there will be open as usual on 5 June.
A special £10 note has been issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland
to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. The note features pictures of the
Queen over her lifetime. Two million of the notes have been printed
and some will be sold at a charity auction later this year.
And Perth has become Scotland's seventh city, thanks to the
Queen - it was one of three UK towns awarded city-status to
celebrate the Jubilee.
Lots of community events are taking place in Scotland over the
long weekend, from concerts and pageants to fireworks and
dances.
Scots will take part in The Big Jubilee Lunch on Sunday, which
encourages neighbours and friends to share a meal. And a network of
2012 beacons will be lit all at once across Britain on Monday
evening, including many locations in Scotland.
Meanwhile, 1000 boats from all over the UK will cruise down the
Thames on Sunday. Other London events will include a concert
outside Buckingham Palace with performances by Elton John, Jessie J
and Kylie Minogue, and a procession by the royal family in a
carriage from Westminster to Buckingham Palace.
While permission has been requested for nearly 10,000 street
parties in England and Wales, less than 100 are planned for
Scotland. One third of these - a total of 34 - will be in
Edinburgh, and there will be just eight in our biggest city,
Glasgow.
Lesson ideas and
suggestions
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our most recent Daily What Newsround on Glow TV, featuring a
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Join us for our next programme on Friday 8 June at 11am when we'll be talking to
a bee expert!
Hurray for the holidays!
Changing times: no repeat of Scotland's 1953 Coronation
celebrations this Jubilee weekend
George Parsonage can still remember the excitement surrounding
the Queen's coronation when he was a 10-year-old boy. "The streets
were bedecked in red, white and blue," he recalls. "We all got a
tin of sweeties at school for it."
Sixty years after Elizabeth II was crowned, George is making
final preparations to his clinker boat from the Glasgow Humane
Society, which will take part in the 1000-strong flotilla of boats
cruising the Thames at the climax of the Diamond Jubilee
celebrations next weekend.
With much of the focus on what is only the second Diamond
Jubilee of a monarch in the UK taking place south of the Border,
the question remains whether Scotland will bother to bring out the
bunting.
Historian Professor Tom Devine, of Edinburgh University, said
there was quite a "dramatic contrast" between how the occasion was
being viewed in Scotland compared with England, as well as
celebrations which took place around past royal events.
He said: "I can recollect the coronation in 1953 which was a
massive communal celebration in Scotland, including street parties
in which I energetically participated. There has been a sea change
between 1953 and the present day - there is much less
interest."
Figures show that while councils in England and Wales have
received almost 9500 road closure applications for street parties,
requests north of the Border have totalled less than 100.
Also, two councils in Scotland - Falkirk and the Western Isles -
have declined to grant staff an additional public holiday to mark
the jubilee on the grounds it would cost too much in the current
economic climate.
How times have changed!
The Queen's official crowning on June 2, 1953 was marked by huge
celebrations in Scotland. Glasgow streets were roped off and
transformed into dance floors for "thousands of high- spirited
citizens", while Aberdeen witnessed a grand procession in Union
Street with "every building gaily decorated". In Edinburgh,
thousands flocked to see fireworks and a huge bonfire lit on
Arthur's Seat.
In 1977, the Queen was greeted by crowds of up to 200,000 people
in Glasgow's George Square when she began her Silver Jubilee tour
of Scotland. According to reports, she made an unscheduled
appearance on the balcony of the City Chambers after the crowd
chanted her name for five minutes.
Mabel Houston, 83, from Irvine, is planning to watch the Diamond
Jubilee celebrations 60 years after she watched the coronation of
Elizabeth II in 1953 on television. She remembers the excitement
surrounding the occasion, but also the sadness among the nation
over the death of King George VI, which happened the year before
while the Queen was abroad in Kenya.
She said: "I was only in my 20s then and I remember the Queen
looked a very young girl. I think I felt quite sorry for her. It
had been so sad for her, the fact she had gone on holiday and come
back and she was the Queen.
"I remember her coming off the plane afterwards and she was all
dressed in black. But I think by the time the coronation came
round, everybody was really looking forward to it. There was a lot
of excitement and I think everybody felt the same."
Houston will attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace next
week representing charity WRVS, for which she has volunteered for
more than 30 years.
She said: "I think it will probably be celebrated quite a lot in
Scotland when the time comes. It is a wee bit slow at the moment
and there are different opinions on it. But we have never seen this
[a Diamond Jubilee] before, it has not happened since Queen
Victoria."
Lesson ideas and
suggestions
Join the Daily What News Facebook group
Click here to watch a recording of
our most recent Daily What Newsround on Glow TV, featuring a
special guest from the Scottish SPCA (Glow login
required).
Join us for our next programme on Friday 8 June at 11am when we'll be talking to
a bee expert!