Tag Archives: Diamond jubilee

Fourth of July greetings to all our American friends!

Posted on July 4, 2012 by | Comments Off

Fourth of July Greetings from Kent, The Garden of England to all our friends and clients across the United States of America.

Based in Kent, England, South East Tour Guides look forward to welcoming you to our own very special part of the UK during our 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games year.

Kent is home to Canterbury Cathedral; The White Cliffs of Dover; Chartwell, home of Sir Winston Churchill; Hever Castle, home to King Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn and Vita Sackville West’s Sissinghurst Gardens, to name just a few of our beautiful and historic county’s ‘must see’ sights.

Check out our website to plan your guided visit to the beautiful South East of England and all its historic treasures.

    


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Posted in Home, Family & Fun, International Links, Kent, Royal Family

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Leicester Square – town and country

Posted on May 26, 2012 by | Comments Off

Leicester Square in London has just re-opened after its £15.3million facelift and is looking fantastic; light and bright  for the daytime & chic and sleek for the evening film premieres for which it is  world famous . This picture shows the recently renovated Swiss Glockenspiel and the exit to Piccadilly Circus with the Union flags already in place for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

But this London square is not the original Leicester Square, that is located in the village of Penshurst in Kent, nestling just outside the walls of Penshurst Place by St John’s Church.

The original Leicester Square was so named after the Earls of Leicester whose family seat was the magnificent stately pile Penshurst Place, a favourite country house of King Henry VIII & later Queen Elizabeth I.

But back to London, shortly after the Great Fire of London in 1666 Robert Sidney, the second Earl of Leicester built a mansion on the north side of the Square named Leicester House s that he had a town house that complemented his country house.

The town estate stretched from present day Lisle Street (commemorating another title of the Sydney family)  to Whitehall.

It was one of the most important addresses in London, often the venue for grand parties attended by royals and dignitaries, including diarist John Evelyn, playwright William Wycherley and the poet Dryden. The future George II lived here in 1717.

So, old or modern, town or country, it’s all in a name; just check you know which one you are planning to visit, one is distinctly quieter than the other!

Blue Badge tourist guide

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Posted in Events, Kent, London

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Catching Up with Colleagues and Making New Friends

Posted on May 12, 2012 by | Comments Off

Dover Castle

It’s been a good week for catching up with colleagues from our Blue Badge Tourist Guides training course.

We’ve all been bumping into each other at Dover Cruise Terminal, Canterbury Cathedral, Leeds Castle and in the cobbled streets of Rye as we introduced some of the first cruise visitors of the season to the delights of Kent’s coastline, beautiful countryside and historic sites.

I’ve taken some lovely groups of people on full and half-day excursions out of Dover on behalf of InterCruises and we have been so lucky with the weather – yesterday in Rye we even had sunshine! Not surprisingly there were a few bemused faces as I explained that despite six weeks of rain almost every day the South East is officially a drought area; although, as I only found out myself recently, anyone who holds a disabled parking Blue Badge is normally exempt from the hosepipe ban. Unfortunately, however, it seems that the authorities will take a dim view of anyone hiring their granny out to water someone else’s garden!

Our visitors are catching on to the excitement of the UK’s big Diamond Jubilee and Olympic Games year and we are looking forward to sharing some of the forthcoming events with them. In the meantime one of our favourites is imminent – The 2012 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.  More about that next week as in the meantime we have some related rather early morning starts to get through!

  

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Posted in 2012 Olympics, International Links, Kent, Local Visits, Royal Family

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A rocky beginning can bring good luck – fingers crossed!

Posted on April 20, 2012 by | Comments Off

A rather unusual vehicle in yesterday’s London traffic was the soon-to-be-very-famous Gloriana who had a rather inauspicious start to her launch; as they say, things can only get better!

Gloriana joined the commuter traffic in London as she was driven from a
shipyard in Brentford to her launching place on the River Thames at Isleworth yesterday.

Full credit goes to her ‘ land captain’ who steered her through heavy traffic as seen in these pictures from the Evening Standard.

Gloriana will be at the head of a 1000 boat pageant on the River Thames on Sunday 3rd June as part of  the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Gloriana will be rowed by 18 VIPS whose names to date remain a secret, with the exception of Sir Steve Redgrave, the five times Olympian Gold medallist for rowing ( so no pressure on the other seventeen, then!).

There will be a naming ceremony attended by The Queen taking place at the Royal Borough of Greenwich on Wednesday 25th April.

Blue Badge tourist guide

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An Italian Passion for Mazes and Royalty

Posted on March 11, 2012 by | Comments Off

Ciao Dear Readers!

I have just returned after a lovely stay in Italy, based in Milan (no – before you ask inexplicably I was neither in nor at Milan Fashion Week).  I was visiting the now very grown up children, with their own children, who I looked after as an au-pair several decades ago, while brushing up my Italian skills with a whole week of speaking no English whatsoever.  I even got through Gone with The Wind in Italian.  A long film at the best of times , but with Italian style frequent advert breaks….

I practised my vocabulary by telling anyone who would listen all about my job as a South East England Blue Badge Guide and the many fascinating places they would be able to visit should they drop into Kent sometime.

I obviously made a strong impression since, as I write, I am dimly aware of a flurry of flight bookings and am braced for an impending influx of my Italian friends requiring a very personal guided tour of South East England.

 

First off – the nine year old son of my one time ‘ littlest Italian bambino’ (now 6 foot 2..)  is obsessed with mazes and he may now be arriving ‘in famiglia’ in August to check out those near where I live at Hever Castle, and an easy outing away at Hampton Court Palace and Leeds Castle.

Meanwhile the fascination with all things to do with our Royal Family among people without their own continues.   While in Italy I was cross- examined on every detail of The Royal Wedding, the changes to the Royal Succession, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the – in their opinion – ‘new improved’ Prince Harry (who during my visit was ‘beating’ Usain Bolt in the 100  metres in Jamaica so was hot news).

The teenage daughters of ‘my little Italian charge now mother of two’ are therefore planning their visit for a personalised guided tour of Windsor Castle, and in particular the Queen’s Dolls House.  No doubt they will also expect the odd trip to Harrods and Buckingham Palace thrown in as well – anywhere they may dream of catching a glimpse of a member of the Royal Family and in  particular the aforementioned eligible Prince.

Kensington Palace which re-opens in just a couple of weeks on 26 March after extensive re-furbishment will obviously be a must for them and it will give me an excuse to visit it too, although I may not be able to organise tea with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

These visits from Italy may clash with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations and/or The Olympic Games at a time when we Blue Badge Guides are likely to be busier than ever – but there will always be time for my Italian family.

This coming week Dawn and I are briefly abandoning our guiding duties to do a course specifically on guiding at the 2012 Olympic Venues.  We will therefore be able to take my Italians for a Blue Badge Guide experience of the Olympic Park too.  Although possibly not while Usain Bolt is running the 100 metres for real, no doubt with Prince Harry watching – sadly I’m not going to be able to get them tickets for that!

Alla prossima volta

  

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Posted in 2012 Olympics, Home, Family & Fun, International Links, Local Visits, Royal Family

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The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – Another Royal Record

Posted on February 6, 2012 by | Comments Off

Today, 6th February 2012, marks the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne on 6th February 1952.  She is only the second British monarch to have achieved this amazing 60th anniversary. Her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria celebrated her own Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

But the Queen is already a record holder: aged 85 she is the oldest British monarch (Queen Victoria lived to 81 years), and she is also the longest married (64 years) becoming the first British Monarch to celebrate a diamond wedding anniversary on November 20 2007.

Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years and 216 days.  If she survives to 10 September 2015 Queen Elizabeth II will have broken this record as well.  Her mother Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother lived to the age of 101 so fingers crossed…

How the Accession took place:

At no time is the country left without a monarch. For this reason the monarch’s flag, The Royal Standard, can never fly at half mast.

When King George VI died suddenly during the night of 5th/6th February 1952, in keeping with the tradition of ‘The King is dead – long live the King,’ whereby the Royal succession passes ‘from breath to breath’, Princess Elizabeth immediately, and for a few hours unknowingly, became Queen Elizabeth II while staying at Tree Tops in Kenya.

The new Queen returned home to England with the Duke of Edinburgh  on 7th February, and the next day, 8th February, the traditional Accession Council took place at St. James’s Palace, attended by 175 Privy Councillors. The Council’s Proclamation of Accession, which confirms the name of the heir, is signed by all the attendant Privy Counsellors. The Proclamation is traditionally read out at several traditional locations in London, Windsor, Edinburgh and York. It is also read at a central location in each town or village.

Visitors sometimes ask us why the Queen was not crowned until the following year.  This is mainly because in addition to a period of mourning after the death of a monarch, organising a lavish Coronation for the new Sovereign takes a lot of time and planning, so that will be another anniversary for us to celebrate next year!

The Diamond Jubilee Barge (Photo William Dudley)

Meanwhile events planned to take place this summer to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee will focus on the official celebrations of the Jubilee Weekend 2-5 June and include the Queen leading a Jubilee Pageant of a flotilla of a thousand boats along the Thames and a chain of beacons lit across the country.

South East Tour Guides are particularly looking forward to visiting the special Diamond Jubilee exhibition ‘The Queen: 60 Photographs for 60 Years’ in the Drawings Gallery on our next trip to Windsor Castle.  The Exhibition runs  from 4 February to 20 October 2012.

             

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Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant Spectacular

Posted on October 18, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Over 3,000 boat owners have applied to take part in the 1,000 boat Royal River Pageant on Sunday 3rd June 2012 which will be the biggest pageant on the Thames since the reign of King Charles II over 350 years ago.

The boats will muster upstream between Chiswick and Wandsworth Bridges and then move downstream from Battersea Bridge under twelve bridges to Tower Bridge led by HM The Queen in a royal barge followed by boats from 92 countries. Behind HM will be rowed boats followed by motorised vessels, longboats, working boats and private vessels.

The Thames River Buses will be on the water with 30,000 spectators aboard and there will be 50 giant TV screens  for the 755,000 landlubbers lining the riverbanks to keep up with the pace.

East of Tower Bridge will be naval ships plus tall ships providing an ‘avenue of sail’ and the barge from the former HMY Britannia.

If you just can’t make 3rd June, then there will be up to 25 rehearsals taking place on the river in the preceding days.

Stake your claim on a bridge, this is going to be spectacular!

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