Celebrations!

        Not many English monarchs have run the course to reign as long as 50 years - Henry VIII missed it by quite a wide margin (1509-1547), George III managed it (1760 to 1820 ) and Victoria (1837 to 1901) passed her Diamond Jubilee. There haven’t therefore been many Golden Jubilee celebrations on the Isle of Dogs. There have been other celebrations though - the opening of the West India Docks in 1802 was one glorious jamboree and the first attempt to launch the Great Eastern from the Millwall foreshore in 1858 was attended by huge crowds when amidst “scenes of wild enthusiasm” flags stretched across the street from public house to public house, church bells rang and bands played from early in the morning - a bit like the Island today during the London Marathon! The Relief of Mafeking was celebrated with torch lit processions in Island Gardens and on the river, when one Islander recalled that: “it was all lit up and boats on the water all lit up as well, men on boats singing Hearts of Oak and Rule Britannia and all the Island went mad”.

        Celebrating by eating lots of special food is a tradition common to most cultures - think of Eid, Passover, of Christmas and the mid-winter eating up of perishable foods, big meals to celebrate the harvest, Easter when we eat the symbolic new season’s eggs. Street parties centred round a special tea for children became popular with the Peace Celebrations after the First World War, in 1919. This may have been a reaction to shortages and rationing and to the sight of pinched and half-starved little faces. It was also something even bereaved families could join in with. There weren’t any reasons for street parties in the 1920s but there were two in the 1930s - The Silver Jubilee of George V and Mary in 1935, and the Coronation of George VI and Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) in 1937.

        Food was usually prepared at home and most of the entertainment was home-made - a concert given by the children, a fancy dress parade. People did their own clowning - dressing up,telling jokes and stories, dancing in the street to the music of piano and accordion, drinkingand singing in the pubs later on. But whatever it was, it was all about raising the money and doing it yourselves.

        Mrs Newton remembered: “Collecting up and down the street - the party all up along the road, outside the houses, we more or less did it all between us, all the custards and the jellies, all the houses did their own decorations, we hung all our streamers from the windows right down to the railings and back up again, it really looked a treat.”

        In Mellish Street it was local men who collected the money for the 1937 Coronation Party. Messrs Bines, Chapman, Cowling, Gilbertson, Platt, Marsden, Smeed and Smith, raised over eighty pounds from residents and local factory owners and shop-keepers. With this they bought 200 teas, flags, bunting, streamers, plaques, ice cream, fruit, hats, small prizes, hired a conjurer and clown, and sent a telegram to the King and Queen.

        There were street parties to celebrate peace after the Second World War, though again overshadowed by mourning. For the Coronation of the present Queen in 1953 the emphasis was againl on the children having a treat. With the hard times of rationing and evacuation still fresh in the memory there was party food and free mugs, games and fancy dress.

        For that event a Kingfield Street resident remembered: “collecting for weeks and weeks, we went to every house, every Friday, and people who had no children brought their grandchildren.” Today the absence of similar activity on the same scale is put down to “women out at work, not so many children” and “not so much neighbourliness - people come and go and don’t get to know each other as they used to.” And just what is a “treat” for kids today? But in spite of all that, many Islanders found a way to celebrate the present Queen’s Golden Jubilee.