Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee 1977

The Queen’s Silver Jubilee was celebrated in Meldreth on Tuesday 7th June 1977.

The Programme

1.45pm  Procession from the village hall to the stocks.

2.00pm  Reverend Alan Heawood dedicated the new village sign.

2.30pm  Children’s sports on the school field

3.45pm  Tea for everyone in the Village Hall

followed by a Whist Drive for the 0ver 60’s

4.00pm   It’s a Knock Out on the recreation ground

8.30pm  Jubilee barbeque followed by dancing with a live band

 

Memories

Tessa Humphreys wrote the following about the day:

In spite of the weather there was an excellent turnout for our procession through the village to the stocks. Many people had dressed up and many people had decorated their bikes, trikes and pushchairs which looked very gay decked out in red, white and blue. The procession, led by a band of school children playing a variety of instruments and by a Jowett Javelin licenced in Cambridge in 1953, made its way to the stocks, where the vicar conducted a short service of dedication and unveiled the new village sign. The sign was carved locally, and has received very favourable comments to date.

After the unveiling the children had fun at their sports on the school meadow after receiving Jubilee buttons for entering a race and a rosette for gaining a place. Tea in the village hall proved very popular, everyone working flat out to serve approximately a thousand teas!

Tea was followed by a whist drive in the village hall and an It’s a Knockout competition between seven teams from the village on the recreation ground. Even the downpour towards the end of the competition did not deter the competitors who carried on to complete the course.

As the village barbeque was due to start at 8.30pm there was just enough time to rush home and tidy oneself and then get back to the recreation ground for the barbeque of chicken, sausages and salad, with dancing to a band in the village hall and to a disco in the marquee until the early hours.

The committee would like to thank everyone who helped make the day enjoyable for us all and for supporting the committee in their efforts.

The Committee

The committee, which had been set up to fund-raise and organise the day, had the following members:

Alan Counsell, Mary Course, Daphne Deakin, Janet Elliott, Cecilia Gillington, Gil Graham, Audrey Hollamby, David Hollamby, Robert Hollamby, Tessa Humphreys, Basil Jacques, Carol Mead, Hazel Parker, Denis Parker, John Price, Richard Remnant, Kathleen Rogers, Bob Weir.

If you have you any memories of the day or can identify anyone in the photographs, please add a comment to this page.

Comments about this page

  • Seeing these photographs reminded me of my part in the Jubilee celebrations in 1977. I can be seen in some of the photographs playing the trombone and wearing a blue t-shirt with a “77” on it. When Ron Harding was head of the primary school he encouraged many children to take up the clarinet. Whoever was organising the 1977 activities asked me to get a marching band of school children together.  This was a challenge with my technical knowledge of music – I do not read music, but improvise around the chords of the number. After some thought I decided to use a corny jazz tune, ‘When the Saints Come Marching In’. Not knowing how to arrange for such a group with a large number of clarinets I split the children into four groups so that they took it in turn to play the tune. I walked from our old house next to the school to the stocks more than once, humming the tune quietly and counting the number of choruses that we would have to play.  I did manage to write out the notes for the children to learn and also copied the melody lines for the hymns which were to be played at the stocks. When we arrived there the music and stands were all at Mrs Findlay’s house (Geneva House) and it was very windy so the music had to be held down with clothes pegs. One slight embarrassment was one hymn sung to the tune of John Brown’s body: I counted it in so fast that nobody was able to get the words out! A success though was God Save the Queen: I copied the piano chords and spread the individual notes among the group as instrument parts with me playing the bass line and to my amazement it sounded very good.

    By John Price (11/06/2012)

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