The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Proclamation

Thursday the 2nd of June saw the town's Jubilee celebrations kicking off the Bank Holiday weekend in style.

It started for me in the town centre, outside the library at 1400 hours.

As you can see from the video below, I do not yet have any livery. This was literally days after I was appointed to the position. Instead I was wearing my Royal British Legion "uniform".

A nice little crowd had gathered at the appointed time I began my first public proclamation. Not a bad one to start my career with! On that point, my personal thanks to Jane Smith, the Bognor Regis Town Crier and author of the proclamation for this very special and historic event.

My efforts appeared to be appreciated and I left feeling quite proud of myself.

Later on the the town park, the John Whitehead Park, there were many celebrations, with music, activities and food amongst many other things and hundreds, if not thousands of people visiting and staying on for the lighting of the beacon at dusk. I spent most of the time at the RBL Information tent that we had set up, handily right next door to the café!

I was asked to read my proclamation again so, after marching through the park with the Royal British Legion and Sea Cadets in the parade, we took up our positions as Honour Guard around the beacon and I started my cry again, this time with a full house!

I then introduced the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Durham, Mark White OBE who spoke about the day and it's significance in history.

At the conclusion of his speech, the beacon was lit and the National Anthem loudly sung by a very buoyant crowd. Feeling the pride and the joy in the crowd I gave an impromptu shout of "Three cheers for Her Majesty the Queen, hip, hip". It was answered warmly and loudly by pretty much everybody present on all three calls.

That concluded my first official day as Billingham Town Crier. What a day and what a memory to treasure for the rest of my days.