"The Queen and her Jubliee became the chief topic of conversation. The tradesmen gave lovely colored portraits of her in her crown and garter ribbon on their almanacs, many of which were framed at home and hung up in the cottages. Jam could be bought in glass jugs adorned with her profile and inscribed ‘1837 to 1887. Victoria the Good,’ and the newspapers were full of the great achievements of her reign.1
The great day dawned at last and most of the hamlet people were up in time to see the sun burst in dazzling spendour...and mount into a sky with no clouds; Queen’s weather indeed! Picture this description given of three villages that had banded together for tea, sports, dancing, and fireworks by Flora Thompson:
“By noon all the hamlet children had been scrubbed with soap and water and arrayed in their best clothes. ‘Every bit clean, right through to the skin,’ as their mothers proudly declared. Then, after a snack, calculated to sustain the family during the walk to the park, but not to spoil the appetite for tea, the mothers went upstairs to take out their own curl papers and don their best clothes. The day was hot, but nobody minded that because they could wear their best hats without fear of showers.
“There were more people in the park than the children had ever seen together, and the roundabouts, swings, and coconut shies were doing a roaring trade. Tea was partaken of in a huge marquee in relays, one parish at a time, and the sound of the brass band, roundabout hurdy-gurdy thwacks, and showmen’s shouting surged round the frail canvas walls like a roaring sea.
Clothes baskets of bread and butter and jam cut in thick slices and watering cans of tea, already milked and sugared, were handed round and disappeared in a twinkling.
This description is given of three villages that had banded together for tea, sports, dancing, and fireworks in the park of a local magnate: “There were more people in the park than the children had ever seen together, and the roundabouts, swings, and coconut shies were doing a roaring trade. Tea was partaken of in a huge marquee in relays, one parish at a time, and the sound of the brass band, roundabout hurdy-gurdy thwacks, and showmen’s shouting surged round the frail canvas walls like a roaring sea. Clothes baskets of bread and butter and jam cut in thick slices and watering cans of tea, already milked and sugared, were handed round and disappeared in a twinkling.” “After tea there were sports, with races, high jumps, dipping heads into tubs of water to retrieve sixpences with teeth, grinning through horse collars, the prize going to the one making the most grotesque face, and, to crow all, climbing the greased pole for the prize leg of mutton. The local gentle people paraded the ground in parties, stout men raising their straw hats to mop their foreheads; hunting ladies...garbed in silks and ostrich-feather boas; young girls in embroidered white muslin and boys in Eton suits.’ In the meantime, the children had been let loose in the crowd to spend their pennies to ride on wooden horses or swing in the swing-boats, watch the coconut bowling and shooting booths, and in a large tent closed off from the noise outside, even see tightrope dancing. We aren’t given the particulars as to what kind of celebration was entered into by the residents Gilver Lane, but Fanny did say that a mug decorated with the image of a young Queen Victoria was given to every school child. Fanny took great care of hers and when she was grown she presented it to her granddaughter who has it to this day.
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