Although her real date of birth is in April, England celebrates Queen Elizabeth’s official birthday every June, with a showy celebration – something that the British are particularly good at.
The custom goes back to King George II, who was born in November but wanted nice weather for a big blowout, so he decided to do it up in June instead. This King George was the father of the King George we are all more familiar with here in the United States. [NOTE: The video narrator said that it was King Edward VII who instituted the official birthday celebration of the sovereign in the month of June. Both Edward VII and George II were born on November 9, but a couple of centuries apart.]
If you are interested (and I KNOW some of you are not), here is a video of the festivities, and if you like parades, this is for you. It’s a long one, so skip around to get a feeling for “how they do it”. To be accurate, Elizabeth R celebrated her real 92nd birthday on April 21, 2018:
What a celebration. 😀
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fish and chips
bubble and squeak
oh wow….hurrah for the queen I guess.
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I can remember when the Queen rode her own horse in the whole ceremony! Bless her, I think she was sad when they told her she had to quit riding in the parade. She was spotted riding the last at the age of 91! I think she quit doing the parade about 15 years ago.
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I think she still rides for her own enjoyment – but not at this! Early in her career, somebody took a couple of shots at her while she was on horseback reviewing the troops.
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The incident where shots were fired (blanks, fortunately) took place in 1981. The most serious thing that happened was that the horses were startled.
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Every year until she died my Brit grandmother would send the Queen a birthday card and a few months later the mass produced ‘thank you’ reply would arrive. You can take the old lady out of Britain…
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I’m not a monarchist, but I do love the pageantry. Nothing like a good show!
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Oh the show is great, the Brits care all about show – they’d better do it now before the Moslems take over and ban it as not having existed in the 7th century.
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