June update: the Platinum Jubilee provides a diversion to the country's woes

The UK had a 4-day bank holiday at the beginning of June for Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee, marking her 70th year as monarch, the first British monarch to have such a jubilee. 

Source: Private Eye

Falmouth town street party

On Thursday 2nd June over 1,500 beacons were lit across the UK, building on a long tradition of lighting beacons to mark significant royal celebrations. Most of the beacon events in Cornwall were arranged by parish and town councils, and we attended the lighting of the beacon in Mabe, Amanda's home village, where she was MC for the event. Looking out from the Mabe beacon we could see the next one, at Pendennis headland, Falmouth.

The Cornish beacons have special significance as in 1588 the first beacon was lit at Land's End on the western tip of Cornwall to carry the warning of the approaching Spanish Armada to the rest of the country. Beacons were lit progressively eastwards along the south coast of England informing London and Queen Elizabeth I of the imminent invasion. According to legend, Francis Drake, the vice admiral in command of the English fleet, was first told of the sighting of the Armada while playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe, just across the Cornish border in Devon. He is said to have answered that ‘there is plenty of time to finish the game and beat the Spaniards’ - but there is no reliable evidence for this.

On the second day of celebrations crowds flocked to the Mall to see the Queen and her family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, but this was sadly the only one of the spectacular events over the four days that she could attend, due to increasing frailty, although she did make a brief appearance on the balcony on the final day, together with the three future kings of England.

She missed the Jubilee thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral where the crowds heckled Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie with a chorus of booze (sorry, boos) and where Johnson gave a reading at the service, ironically a passage from the Bible about the importance of truth and honour. A day after the jubilee celebrations Johnson won the backing of a majority of Tory MPs in a confidence vote despite a significant revolt against his leadership, 41.2% of conservative MPs voting against him. And despite two humiliating by-election defeats later in the month he still clings on, refusing to do the honourable thing and resign.

The Jubilee celebrations were a great success, and a great advert for Britain, but there is no disguising that the country is in a mess, with prices rising at their fastest rate in 40 years, and inflation nearing 2 digit figures. Rubbing salt in our wounds was a three day rail strike, the worst in 30 years, and news that the percentage of people testing positive for Coronavirus has increased in the UK, most likely caused by infections from Omicron variants.

There were no Covid thoughts at Falmouth's Chain Locker, which was busy on the night of the June Cornish Mining Sundowner, but Falmouth was heaving a couple of days later at the start of the annual Sea Shanty Festival.

But a few days later Falmouth and the rest of Cornwall were effectively cut off from the rest of England due to the National Rail Strike, with no trains passing Plymouth. And speaking of Falmouth, it looks certain that next year's June MEI Conferences will be back to the National Maritime Museum. Formal announcements will be made soon.

The National Maritime Museum overlooking Falmouth harbour

An finally, four days ago we held an MEI 'work event' to say farewell to Jon and family, who set off for their new life in Luxembourg on Wednesday, from where Kathryn has been commuting back and forth over the past couple of months, having taken up her new role as Director of the European Space Resources Innovation Centre at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. We are certainly going to miss them but we know they have an exciting future ahead.

The family say au revoir to Jon, Kathryn, Josephine and Seth

It was good to see Dean Eastbury, who called in with his partner Penny to wish them well. Dean is now retired in Hayle on the north Cornwall coast and is a regular attendee at the Cornish Mining Sundowners. He was formerly Executive Publishing Manager at Elsevier, looking after Minerals Engineering and International Journal of Mineral Processing for many years, as well as representing Elsevier at MEI Conferences. Kathryn was one of the editors of IJMP until its merger with Minerals Engineering in 2018.

Dean (3rd left) with me, Barbara, Jon, Kathryn and Amanda

@barrywills