Diamond Jubilee events in and around York

THE citizens of North and East Yorkshire will be doing it their way when they celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Bands will play, prams will be pushed, penalty goals shot, teddy-bears will picnic, scarecrows will amuse, vintage cars and steam engines will go on display, guns will sound and fires will blaze across the countryside.

The bunting will go up and the tables will come out in scores of streets from the East Yorkshire coast to the A1 and from the North York Moors to the Humber.

Even the nave of York Minster will play host to a royal meal when 900 guests sit down to the York Minster Rose dinner on June 8, only the second time such an event has been held.

The sound of bells will start the four-day Jubilee weekend at 9.30am when the Minster ringers attempt a full peal. At midday, the military will fire a 21-gun salute in Museum Gardens.

Long before the bells fall silent, Riccall carnival will be under way, where York City players will show their penalty shootout skills; at Tadcaster, carnival prams will be lining up for a push; the Diamond Jubilee Steam Festival will be running special services between Pickering and Whitby and the Jubilee pub, off Leeman Road, York, with St Barnabas’ Church, will be holding a joint street party.

But the first of many York street parties will have already happened, six days earlier in Norfolk Street.

The bands of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the Royal Corps of Signals (Northern) with the Colne Valley Male Voice Choir will perform a Jubilee concert at York’s Barbican Centre in the evening.

Sunday will see churches across the area holding special services and prayers for Her Majesty, while at Middlethorpe Hall diners will sit down to the same menu as the Queen ate on Coronation Day and pre-war Austins will rally at the walled garden in Scampston near Malton.

On Monday scarecrows will take over Rosedale Abbey on the North York Moors and St Helen’s Square, central York, will be just one of many sites joining in the Diamond Jubilee nationwide beacon chain.

Throughout the four days communities large and small will hold street parties, carnivals and street parades and elect a King and Queen for a day and on the Tuesday, there will be a teddy bear picnic in Pickering.

• If you are organising a Diamond Jubilee event, let us know about it. You can contact Megi on megi.rychlikova@thepress.co.uk or 01904 567152.