FCDO staff lead Platinum Jubilee celebrations around the world
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) HQ in London will be lit up tonight in honour of Her Majesty The Queen.
To celebrate the Platinum Jubilee, Gerry Hofstetter created the largest ever artwork of its kind across the Bernese Alps. Photo credit: Gerry Hofstetter.
- Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office HQ in London will be lit up tonight in honour of Her Majesty The Queen
- tributes include Red Arrows flypast in France and world record attempt as renowned light artist illuminates Swiss Alps
- Foreign Secretary pays homage UK’s longest serving Monarch as Posts across the globe mark the Platinum Jubilee
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is helping lead the way on celebrating HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee around the world.
The FCDO’s Whitehall HQ at King Charles Street will tonight be symbolically lit up with the Platinum Jubilee emblem beamed onto the historic building to mark Her Majesty’s 70 years on the throne.
The illumination of the London landmark to coincide with the ceremonial Lighting of Jubilee Beacons at 9pm tonight (2 June) is just one of the ways FCDO staff across the world are toasting the Jubilee long weekend.
In France, the Red Arrows will perform a spectacular flying display over Le Touquet-Paris-Plage on the northern coast at the English Channel on Saturday, while the Embassy in Paris is showing a collection of 3-metre-high portraits of Her Majesty The Queen at the Ambassador’s residence. The works include a 1953 Cecil Beaton Coronation portrait and a David Bailey portrait from 2014.
President Macron is leading a ceremony of thanksgiving and recognition to the Queen at the Arc De Triomphe today supported by a band from the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
In Switzerland, British Embassy staff have been working with world famous light artist Gerry Hofsetter to project a Platinum Jubilee light display onto 4 Bernese Alps mountains, including the majestic 3,967 metre high Eiger.
The massive image of the Jubilee Crown emblem and a silhouette of HM The Queen has been submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records as the ‘largest light art composition’ the world has ever seen.
In Chile, 2 companies of the Chilean Fire Service are celebrating its historic links with the UK by branding fire engines in Valparaíso and Santiago with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee emblem, while the logo also decorates the fire station in Valparaíso.
Foreign Office Minister Vicky Ford unveiled the 14th Company’s specially branded fire engine in a visit to Santiago earlier this year and FCDO staff are celebrating by hosting the first ever British Embassy Street Party in Santiago today, which includes an appearance by horses from one of Chile’s leading stables, Palmas de Peñaflor.
Tiny Pitcairn Island – the smallest British overseas territory with just 35 inhabitants in the Pacific – is holding a Jubilee dinner and will be the final FCDO Post to light a beacon, as it is 9 hours behind the UK.
The British Embassy in Ireland has announced that the King George V Cup will be reinstated this year as a feature race at the Leopardstown Racecourse today, in partnership with the Dublin track, the British Irish Chamber of Commerce and Kmend.
Stemming from the presentation of a specially commissioned trophy by King George V at Leopardstown during his visit to Ireland in 1911, the 1 mile 4 furlong listed race for 3-year-olds was first reinstated under the Royal title in 2013 and will be run again this year at 7:20pm this evening for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Poland, the British Embassy has opened a photo exhibition along the side of Warsaw’s largest park including images of HM The Queen meeting with Polish icons Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II during her 70-year reign. A number of Polish cities will be lighting up their most iconic buildings purple and white in honour of the Monarch, including the Palace of Culture and Science, in Warsaw, Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre, and Plac Litewski, in Lubin.
As part of its Jubilee celebrations, the British Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan will be displaying a carpet which uses traditional local weaving techniques to combine the Scottish thistle, Welsh daffodil, Irish shamrock and English rose with the Caucasus country’s national emblem, the pomegranate.
FCDO staff based in America are hosting a series of events celebrating the Jubilee in Washington, New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, Atlanta Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
In South Korea, K-pop superstars Blackpink attended a Queen’s Birthday Party last week celebrating the Platinum Jubilee with British Embassy staff.
In Thailand, British Embassy staff have arranged for a celebratory digital message to be beamed from the top of the Baiyoke Tower, one of Bangkok’s tallest buildings.
HM Ambassadors and High Commissioners representing the UK around the world have nominated 70 of their favourite recipes to a special ‘Platinum Jubilee Cookbook’ celebrating British food and drink products.
The book, which includes a joint foreword from Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, was created by FCDO diplomat Ameer Kotecha, who also came up with the idea of a competition to invent a new ‘Platinum Pudding’ to be dedicated to HM The Queen.
Many of the dishes included have been served up to HM The Queen or other Royals on official overseas visits. All of the royalties from sales of the book are being donated to The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust and The Prince of Wales’ Charitable Fund.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said:
Her Majesty The Queen is the very embodiment of the best of Britain and no Monarch has ever served our country for as long, or so well.
In an ever changing and uncertain world, the Queen has been a rock who has offered wise counsel to over 170 Heads of State and dedicated her life to promoting unity and social freedom.
Her remarkable service to the UK and the Commonwealth is rightly being recognised across the globe, during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, as she continues to touch the lives of millions of people beyond our shores.
Background
- Images of King Charles Street lit up at 9pm tonight (2 June) can be reproduced free of charge from the FCDO’s Twitter feed, from the FCDO Flickr page, or are available on request
- Swiss Alps world record attempt photographs/video is available here.
- More Platinum Jubilee around the world photos available here.
- All content free to use – credit FCDO.
- For all media enquiries, email [email protected] or telephone 020 7008 3100
Media enquiries
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