Marlborough Town Council has announced initial plans for celebrations to mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, featuring an event marking Marlborough College’s royal connections with former pupils who include the Duchess of Cambridge.
The four days of events will start on the afternoon of Thursday, June 2 with a street party in the High Street. This will be followed that evening by the lighting of the town’s beacon on the common, which will be accompanied by a piper, a bugler and a choir.
Other events will include the 'Great Marlborough Bake Off', for which local bakers will be invited to submit dishes cakes fit for a queen, and a community campfire and barbecue organised by the town’s Scout group on the Friday evening.
There will also be a music recital at St George’s Church, Preshute, and a tour of Marlborough College exploring its royal connections.
Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge attended the £40,000 a year college from 1996-2000 when she took her A-levels and excelled at hockey.
Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, another former pupil of the college, told The Guardian: “As someone vaguely associated with the future Queen of England, I am bombarded with questions about her ‘set’. An American recently asked: ‘So, was Kate queenly at school?’
“The answer is, not in the slightest. Kate was ordinary, hard-working, athletic and easy-going. Media depictions swing between a snooty Sloane and a dastardly ‘commoner’. Both are wrong.”
Kate’s sister Pippa is also an Old Marlburian – as is Princess Eugenie, who attended the college as a boarder from 2003-2008.
The college was also the old school of the late Robin, Baron Janvrin, who was private secretary to The Queen from 1999 to 2007, and Alan 'Tommy' Lascelles, who was private secretary to both The Queen and her father King George VI.
On the Saturday there will be a display of classic cars alongside the market in the High Street and a pop-up food festival and screening of royal-related films at the Parade Cinema.
The celebrations will conclude on Sunday, June 5 with a civic service at St Mary’s Church, a “children’s chat with the town mayor”, a tea dance at the town hall, a street party at Manton and a Rotary-organised royal platinum picnic on the common from 2-10pm.
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