Chalke Valley is the Glastonbury of history; entertainment, education and chocolate dinosaurs

I bolted out of my bed an hour before a working day would see me rise, giddy with excitement to climb into the car and head west on the A303. We were off to a farm field transformed to a temporary town by a profusion of tents, stages and thousands of people. We’d spend the day drifting from one stage to another, listening to the delights we’d picked out from a packed programme.

No. I wasn’t off to Glastonbury. A lot of festivals grace England’s green and pleasant countryside. The one that sets me aquiver is the Chalke Valley History Festival.

Running since 2011, with the inevitable break for Covid, the festival is a mix of historical re-enactment societies, talks from historians, musical entertainment (heavy on folk and WWII) and old time carnival rides. It’s set in an exquisite valley, long and broad enough to hold thousands in a sprawling, 70-acre fairground but deep enough to screen out the rest of the world behind towering earthen walls undulating with green wheat. And the end of the valley, where hills rise on three sides to form a bowl, there’s a natural arena where battles, demonstrations and equine racing and manoeuvres are played out for the audience lounging on the hills. There’s a WWI trench experience cut into another hillside and a display of old steam vehicles sprawled across one of the slopes.

On the valley floor, main stages share room with the encampments of the various historical societies, a shopping area, historic carnival rides decked out in Edwardian glory and a happily modern court of food trucks. For the duration of your visit you’ve been transported to a place where Romans mix with Napoleonic troopers, Roundheads and Cavaliers share a drink under the pub marquee and medieval knights stand behind you in the queue for barbecue. Total strangers lose their English reserve to talk about what their reading, evaluate the mock battles and ponder the what ifs of history.  The almost complete black-out of network reception due to those enormous hills adds to the feeling you’ve left the real world behind.

Historical re-enactment societies and the cosplay around them are well established in England, with most groups having a full schedule of “camps” at various events through the summer where they strut their stuff. We run into Wellington’s troops regularly at the Highclere Battle Proms and the Sealed Knot re-enacting a major battle in our neighbouring village of Old Basing every year. For years, English Heritage brought all these groups together for an annual crossing of the timelines called The Festival of History, which morphed into History Live! Before they shut it down in 2015 to focus on smaller local events. We’d loved the English Heritage event, despite its Midlands location being a logistical challenge,  and had been searching for an alternative since its demise but hadn’t succeeded until this weekend. 

Chalke Valley has all the thrilling scope of the old English Heritage event but with an infusion of the Hay Literary Festival. It’s also, happily, just over an hour from our house, on the west side of Salisbury. Alongside the battle re-enactments and strolling through the re-enactors encampments, there’s a full schedule of lectures on four different stages, with many of them spotlighting authors of new books who sign copies in one of the two festival book shops after their events. James Holland, a historian who regularly pops up in the media, and James Heneage, founder and former CEO of Ottakar’s book stores, created the Festival. Dan Snow and his History Hit empire are now heavily involved (they own one of the four main stages). Thus it’s no surprise the festival pulls in some big names. Ian Hislop, Dan Jones, Niall Ferguson and Emma and Nicholas Soames were knocking about on our day. 

The literary festival approach adds a freshness that the English Heritage event lacked. However spectacular, it was pretty much exactly the same every year. At Chalke Valley, the lecture schedule means no two days, much less two years, will be the same. On the down side, it means there’s so much going on you can’t possibly do everything in one day. We had to make tough choices between competing activities (Talk Like a Viking or New Thinking on the Wars of the Roses?) and were so enthralled with the talks that we didn’t have time to take in anything in the arena. Nor could we linger long beside the excellent live music provided in the entertainment area.

The literary angle also requires more advance planning. While one general admission ticket (£16 on weekends) gets you into the fairground and two of the lecture stages, the two main stages require pre-booked £15 tickets for each talk. Big names sell out, so planning is essential. Children’s activities are also booked and paid in advance, so if you want to attend Sword School or the Trench Experience, you need to get your act together early. (We didn’t.)

If you love history as much as we do, the result of your pre-booking could be a very expensive day out, especially if you end up buying the books related to the lectures you attend. But all profits go to improving how history is taught in British schools, so it’s hard to imagine a better expenditure.

My favourite lecture of the day came from Ruth Scurr, whose new biography of Napoleon takes the unorthodox approach of looking at his life through the prism of the gardens he was associated with. The majority of Napoleonic literature focuses on big books by men about big battles, debating whether he was ultimately a hero or villain. Scurr’s approach looks much more at the man and his influence on science, nature and the arts. Piers’ pick was Samir Puri and Zareer Masani taking a fresh view of imperialism and empire. After years of the mainstream academic view being that it was all bad and Britain should beat itself up over the legacy, here are two authors with roots in Commonwealth countries bringing out reasons why it wasn’t all bad.  Later, we were both fascinated and horrified by Sarah Churchwell’s evaluation of modern America. I wasn’t expecting cheerfulness from The Wrath to Come: Gone With the Wind and the Lies America Tells, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade the day before changed the direction of discussion significantly. Like me, the author is an American who’s lived here more than 20 years, and her views of what’s going on in our homeland are grim. “The civil war has already started,” she asserted, pointing to mass shootings and urban violence. A large English audience, who were fascinated, perplexed and more than a bit scared, contributed to a lively Q&A.

Away from official lectures we found out more about recent archeological discoveries at Waterloo, got to try on medieval armour and were captivated by tales of Monmouth’s rebellion. I chatted about the impressive growth of HistoryHit with the company’s main podcast producer and managed to be in the right place at the right time for two showy ride-bys of lavishly costumed horses and riders. I was delighted with the intellectual twist that saw ice cream from the Jurassic Coast served with chocolate dinosaurs rather than the traditional Flake. I even got in a bit of archery, using a longbow for the first time and sinking half my arrows into the straw torso of a supine medieval knight.

I’d been looking for something like this since English Heritage pulled the plug on its festival. Though we’d tried a couple other options, nothing we'd found compares to this. I haven't packed this much childish delight into one day since my last time on Disney property.  

I do have a few hopes for improvement. Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and the American revolution are all societies I've seen at other events but were missing here. I'd love to see them add to the fun. And though the Ancient Romans were present, their numbers were much smaller than I've seen in the past. The shopping area has a long way to go. Given the history association and, one assumes, the above-average income of attendees, I was expecting a lot of hand-made, artsy stuff of the sort you find at high-end craft festivals, as well as historic or history-inspired clothing and hats. The handful of vendors on site were underwhelming. With the exception of the magnificent Waterstone's book tents. And that's about it. The day was pretty much perfect and I didn't want to leave.

Chalke Valley is Glastonbury for history lovers. After my inaugural visit I’m thinking that, like Glastonbury, you need to stay on site at least one night in order to get the full satisfaction. Unlike Glastonbury, this doesn’t involve bringing your own kit and pitching tents in the mud, but reserving one of the festival’s quite respectable-looking glamping tents. Which means you can stay into the evening for historic dinners, music and witnessing the illumination technology of campers through the ages. Who’s coming with me in 2023?

Ten books to feed a well-read Renaissance mind

A university friend recently posed a tricky question to our Facebook chat group. What are the Top 10 books that could help someone become “well read”? 

This normally triggers a list of classic literature, and while some titles pop up with a high frequency, the lists will be as diverse as the people offering them. Her question got me thinking about what "well read" actually means, how much the meaning of the term has changed since my school days, and how many modern people could claim the attribute.  In a digitised world of short attention spans and fragmented interests, where British students start dropping whole disciplines in their early teens and everyone leans increasingly into the personalised content streams curated on their phone apps, does "well read" have any relevance beyond the pub quiz?

I'd argue it does. I received what was once known as a classical education, with the intent of creating a "Renaissance person" who would know a little about, and be able to converse intelligently, on anything. Anything, of course, meant Western European civilisation, dominated by giants of history who were overwhelmingly white men. Rather than doing me any harm, I like to think that the time I spent studying, digging into and debating about those things sharpened my ability to appreciate cultures beyond mine. When I encountered them, I had the intellectual curiosity to appreciate and want to learn more about the glories of  everything from West African art to ancient Indian mathematics to to Japanese literature.

So "well read" for me is a list that creates a broad base of knowledge and stimulates the desire for more. It makes you think. It gives you the ability to talk to anyone you may meet and, more importantly, ask them intelligent questions. My list, like my early education, leans to Western European culture ... because that's my culture, not because I'm denying anyone else's. But it's suffused with themes, questions and eternal truths that cut across the human experience. 

ONE Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari

This is generally acknowledged to be the first work of art history, full of ripping tales of colourful people and definitive judgements that shaped the whole idea of the Renaissance. Would Michelangelo and Da Vinci still be household names without Vasari's 16th century PR spin? Who knows. In the past century battalions of art historians have argued that the Renaissance was more of a pan-European evolution than a Florentine explosion, that there were many artists just as good as Vasari's favourites, and that what was happening in Northern Europe was just as spectacular. General knowledge and the queues at the Uffizi and the Sistine Chapel, however, prove that Vasari may have been the greatest publicist of all time. Read him and make up your own mind.

TWO Persuasion, Jane Austen 

Austen is arguably the first truly modern novelist and her books remain palatable to modern audiences when so many Georgian and Victorian novels are turgid trials. She's essential for understanding the development of the novel, particularly in characterisation and dialogue. She's a master class in satire. I think this is her best work, though oddly much lesser known. (Probably because it's never had a major film treatment and hasn't had a good adaptation since the BBC's production in 1995.) It has her most searing social commentary, her hero and heroine with the most interesting character development and her most odious antagonists. But most enduring is the examination of the difference between how men and women love, and the question of whether one is hard wired to love more faithfully than the other. It could be one hell of a date night conversation.

THREE Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder

A surprise to everyone as the best selling book of the year in 1995, this quirky novel manages to introduce you to the entire history of Western philosophy as the key to unlocking a strange mystery. There’s more than a touch of A Wrinkle in Time here, one of my favourite children’s books and probably the first that had me asking big questions beyond the straight line of a plot. While enough of a page turner to keep you engaged as fiction, this is one that would spark amazing discussions in a book club.

FOUR And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

Depending on how you’re counting, either Agatha Christie or William Shakespeare win the prize for the best selling author of all time. More important, perhaps, is that nobody else comes close. While almost everyone probably read one or two of her murder mysteries at school, if you haven’t read her recently you might have forgotten just how good her prose is. Lean, elegant, beautifully descriptive and exquisitely plotted and paced. She invented almost everything that’s now become the trademarks of the murder mystery genre and this, IMHO, is one of the best. If you are lucky enough to not know this plot already, your first reading will thrill you with one of the greatest plot twists of all time; completely unguessable in advance but brilliantly plausible in retrospect.

FIVE The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli

To hell with modern management books. A thoughtful acquaintance with this slim volume will give you all you need to understand and navigate organisational politics. I wouldn’t advocate some of the more ruthless options explored, but the Renaissance diplomat’s insight into power, politics and human motivation remains spot on. Replace the conquest of new cities with mergers and acquisitions, or joining a new company and having to lead a team, and it all makes sense.

SIX In the Shadow of the Sword, Tom Holland

This is a controversial one. Though Holland is a respected historian, he is not a specialist on the Islamic world and some Islamic experts question scholarship and the conclusions he draws. He is, however, a fantastic writer, having started as a novelist before taking up history full time. That makes this exploration of the history of Islam a real page turner, and I found its insights revelatory for understanding Middle Eastern conflict, terrorism, extremism and religious strife in our world today.

SEVEN To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

My favourite coming of age novel still teaches important lessons. The beloved American classic gives us both the best and the worst of human behaviour but, comfortingly, sees good prevail. It was my introduction to the difficult questions around race in America, and to the socially isolated, first encountered when the book was about 15 years’ old. I don’t think I imagined it would still be so relevant when I was the age my grandmother was then. While all the slideware of the many inclusion and diversity classes I’ve encountered in the corporate world has the right idea, getting people to read (or re-read) Mockingbird and talk about it seriously would probably have a bigger impact.

EIGHT A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

American expat turned British citizen, former journalist, lover of and writer about the best of Britain … Bill Bryson holds a very special place in my heart. Better known for comedy, personal opinion columns and travel literature, this is his take on science. What everyone should know, presented in an entertaining, easily digestible way.  If it had been around in my university days, it might have been the “science for journalists” class we all took to cover our requirements in that daunting field.

NINE Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain

My pick for my home state of Missouri’s greatest citizen (sorry, Harry Truman), Twain is best known for his works of fiction about early America. This personal memoir is one of the first great works of travel literature. It remains wildly entertaining as a collection of great tales. Even 100 years on, however, it’s the observations of the American character and how it interacts with the rest of the world that’s particularly fascinating. And still, too often, relevant.

TEN The Lord of the Rings trilogy, JRR Tolkien

It all started here. The fantasy franchises that stream through media sites, the blockbuster movies, the computer games, the cosplay communities. But these three novels are about more than fantasy. They stand on their own as classic coming of age stories. They are glittering examples of how archaic myths get perpetually recycled. Explorations of good versus evil. And the ultimate example of creating new worlds from imagination. They're also beautifully written by a master storyteller. If you've dismissed them because you "don't do fantasy" you're missing something special.

And here are five that just missed the list: The Tale of Genji (11th c Japanese novel by a female author); Heart of Darkness (exploring how evil deeds can warp the human soul); Shakespeare’s sonnets (love, explained); Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (wise words to live by); The Castle of Otranto (the world's first gothic novel)

Sotheby's glittering tiara exhibition is a rare treat

If you, like me, still kick yourself for not booking tickets soon enough to get into the Victoria and Albert Museum’s  sold out Tiaras show, redemption is at hand. Get to Sotheby’s on New Bond Street before 28 June to see a dazzling collection, impressively displayed, free to enter and not particularly crowded. 

The exhibition is part of the legendary auction house's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, and I doubt many museums could co-ordinate loans from private owners on the scale you see here. Many of these items carry the names of the families through which they've passed for generations. Most famously there's the Spencer tiara, worn by Princess Diana on her wedding day, but also the Anglesey, FitzWilliam, Hopetoun, Derby, Rosebery and Westminster tiaras. While their wearers are long gone, a fair few of these attended the queen's coronation 69 years ago. One assumes the legendary auction house has either sold to, or sold for, most families who actually have tiaras in the family vault and could thus call in those loans.

Luckily, you don't need to be amongst the heavily bejewelled elite to get in. While the architecture and the doormen might seem intimidating, everyone is ready with a warm welcome and deep excitement about the show.

There are more than 40 tiaras to see here with a smattering of other bits of jewellery to match. Roughly two thirds are in glass cases set into pillars placed across the gallery, with the rest in glass-fronted alcoves in the walls. The most impressive examples in the pillars are set on plinths that slowly rotate. The lighting here is exceptional, in most places coming from rotating discs of multiple colours. While the light they're throwing off appears clear and bright, its effect is to simulate the kind of sparkle you'd get off these jewels when people wore them and moved across a room. Like a really big fireworks show, the effect when you look at the whole place is almost too much to handle. You need to isolate your vision to one thing at a time to fully appreciate the artistry on display.

The boxes set into the walls have a different kind of magic; the jewellery within them seems to levitate, gently floating up and down. There are no wires visible. The illusion is even more fascinating than the tiaras, and visitors will spend a great deal of time trying to figure out the magic.

A quick read of labels shows that tiaras enjoyed a brief heyday from the Regency period through the Edwardian, with the bulk of those displayed here dating from the late 19th century. Many of the gems, however, would have been recycled from earlier settings. The most well-known in its time would probably have been the diamond and emerald example designed for Queen Victoria by her husband Albert. It's on loan from Historic Royal Palaces and also to be seen in a portrait of the young Victoria in the next gallery, where Sotheby's has pulled together a secondary Jubilee exhibition of portraits of all the reigning queens since the conquest. ("regnant" being the key point here. There have been only six.) Albert's tiara design was an early example of gothic revival, to become wildly popular through the rest of the 19th century but fairly unusual in the examples to have lasted.

There are a lot of floral examples, charmingly echoing the celebratory wreaths of flowers that probably inspired those jewelled tiaras. Unlike Victoria's, most of these are monochromatic diamond. I found myself more drawn to more abstract or geometric models, particularly those that veered towards ... or fully embraced ... art deco. More label reading showed that I'm also quite partial to Cartier. Their wave form tiara, c. 1904, was an early example of jewellery-making with platinum, the strength of which allowed more daring designs than softer gold.

Another favourite was Cartier's 1920 bandeau with amethysts. Given my love of purple and white since my days at Northwestern, this would have appealed even before I fell for the geometric harmony of its design. This label also mentions it's amongst the tiaras for sale, price upon request. Should anyone be looking for a gift for me.

My other favourites take me back to the beginning of the great era of tiaras. While no fan of Napoleon, I adore the neo-classical designs he patronised and inspired. The laurel wreath tiara from the 1830s was directly inspired by one of his portraits.

Another favourite that could have come from that era was in fact by Faberge, c. 1903. While the exhibition descriptions don't go into detail, I'd guess someone in Imperial Russia was trying to channel the glories of the Napoleonic Empire. We all know how that went.

Just writing about it is making me want to visit again. And it's easy to do, because admission is free. But I, and you, will need to move fast as it's only on for another two weeks.

Not even Longborough can save Siegfried from himself

Great film series tend to have at least one instalment that lets down the side. Who can forget, or forgive, how Temple of Doom sullied the original Indiana Jones trilogy? Thus it is with Siegfried within Wagner's legendary Ring cycle. It is still undeniably Wagner, so we have captivating music, compelling themes and high drama. But the hero is a thoroughly unlikeable brat who, after subjecting us to hours of alternating complaining, bluster and self-obsession, implausibly wins the love of one of the most magnificent female characters in all of opera within just one scene. 

Not even Longborough, now proudly ordained as “the British Beyreuth”, can save this opera from itself. It is the penance one has to pay to get through to the heartache and beauty of Götterdämmerung.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy a great deal about this production. First, and always to be expected at Longborough, the cast was magnificent. In this most masculine of Wagnerian outings, it was the three small female roles that impressed most. Julieth Lozano's woodbird ... the first friend Siegfried has ever made once he is able to understand its language … was an absolute delight, guiding the hero with cheerful enthusiasm, delicately avian movements and a pure soprano voice worthy of the morning chorus. Mae Heydorn emerges from the mist as Erda, her one scene almost stealing the whole show. She is a majestic, all-knowing goddess … had Judi Dench been an opera singer, her performance would have had this gravitas … yet also as confused and lethargic as you’d expect while struggling to consciousness from a centuries-long sleep. And Lee Bisset's return as Brünnhilde after last summer's turn in Die Walkure was a joy tarnished only by how little stage time Wagner gives her in this instalment. The heart of her section … where she’s emotionally torn by her joy at evading eternity’s curse and finding out the child she struggled to protect has grown into a hero versus her terror about losing her supernatural powers and being subjugated to a man … was powerful. The bits on either side where she’s in giddy love with her much-younger brat of a nephew who woke her from her curse? Preposterous. But Bisset’s a soprano, not a miracle worker.

Bradley Daley, in his Longborough debut, had the unenviable task of trying to make Siegfried likeable and credible, all the more challenging by Longborough's intimate, 500-seat theatre. The character works only if you understand him as an undisciplined, unloved, immature, hormone-ravaged teenaged boy, experiencing an abrupt coming of age due to extraordinary circumstances. While the costuming and Daley's acting did an admirable job of characterisation, no illusion at those close quarters can hide that the singer is old enough to be Siegfried's father. Of course, I don't believe any human young and buff enough to give us a great physical Siegfried could ever deliver his voice. (Jonas Kaufman probably managed it a decade ago, but I’ve never seen him in this role.) Only a singer of of deep maturity could hit the range, power and endurance Siegfried requires, and Daley delivers. Another of the irreconcilable contradictions within the opera itself.

Sets and costumes were particularly good. I might have been easily impressed simply because we haven’t seen a full staging since 2019 (thanks, Covid), but memory suggests this was pushing even Longborough's impressively creative envelope. A multi-level set and the most sophisticated use of light and video projection I can remember here really maximised the limited space within this tiny theatre. Erda's scene was the best example of everything coming together, with her ethereal grey and diamond costume materialising as if from nowhere and returning to the mists, her on a distant mountain top while Wotan occupied a lesser plain. We were going to praise the cleverly integrated stilts that allowed Wotan to tower over everyone else with a commanding presence, until we realised Pauls Putnins is simply that tall! 

They even won me over with Alberich's “dragon”, not a dragon at all but a bitter and twisted human on crutches. I continue to dream of a production that gives me a properly winged, scaled, clawed and fire-breathing dragon of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones quality, but the idea of a man destroying his physical well-being with excessive greed was far more palatable than the robotic extensions, towers or cherry pickers that modern, abstract productions have leaned towards. Perhaps the best bit of creativity on the night, however, was Freddie Tong stepping in to sing Alberich from one of the front boxes while Mark Stone, suffering from throat problems, lip synched and “walked the role”. Another stretch of credulity that delivered.

A fresh, young conductor was also thrilling. The orchestra, returned to glorious full strength and packed back into the usual crowded, under-stage pit with no social distancing required, was still very much under the direction of Anthony Negus. The great man is now clearly acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest Wagner interpreters, but Longborough plans to be around for a very long time and it’s always promoted young artists. Thus they’ve appointed a Ring Cycle Conducting Fellow, the promising Harry Sever, to work alongside Negus, share the load and develop the next generation.

Above, below and backstage, it’s clear Longborough is in safe hands for the future. I’m looking forward to my first ring in 2024 (Longborough’s second) when we sign up to binge watch all four episodes in one week. No matter how much they improve this one … and there’s not that much to improve … they’ll still have their hands tied by Wagner’s characterisation and plot. But you need to trudge through The Two Towers to fully appreciate the magnificence of Return of the King. 

Jubilee is a once-in-history celebration of a uniquely worthy British woman, and institution

Sixteen years ago I swore my allegiance to her Majesty the Queen as a new citizen of the United Kingdom, while retaining my passport from the United States. I saw no conflict. America’s government and institutions come in a direct line of descent from the UK, and I couldn’t imagine a time when the special relationship wouldn’t hold my two homes in bonds of amity. 

I also liked the queen. A great deal. 

My confidence wasn’t just rooted in my admiration for the extraordinary Elizabeth Windsor, about whom many millions of laudatory words will have been written on this, her Platinum Jubilee weekend. After living in England for more than a decade, I’d become a big fan of an a-political head of state. A person who embodied the nation, who worked

constantly in its service, but who hadn't climbed the greasy pole of politics and had no political opinions. (At least none we will ever hear about.) The more polarised politics has become in both of my home countries, the more I appreciate how this critical feature of the UK government stands apart.

I was horrified, therefore, when my nephew came to visit us while studying for his A levels in UK government and politics, to discover that the role of head of state, and the monarchy that fulfils it, were not covered in his course materials. "I won't be tested on it, so why should I bother?" he argued. No wonder that while polls consistently show majority support for the Queen and the institution, those numbers plummet amongst the 16 - 24 age group. 

Whilst I support his pragmatic methods for scoring well on his test, I did my best to argue my case for the British monarchy to a skeptical teenager. Feel free to disagree with the institution but, if you're going to take the republican point of view, then lay out your plan for how you'll replace our current system? Who will become patron of those hundreds of charities, and will they have the same power to attract volunteers and fund-raising? Ditto for the leadership of all those bits of the military. Who becomes the focal point of the honours system, and will their distribution of awards, and invitations to garden parties, evoke the same pride and exclusivity as when they come from a monarch? Who will go on all of those State visits to other countries, and host leaders here? We've benefitted from a royal team who (with a few aberrations quickly dealt with) impresses and gentles everyone from brutal dictators to self-obsessed populists, who can't be tied to whichever party is in power ... or the opposition ... and who can remain gracious and welcoming no matter what their personal feelings for the visitor. I need the replacement to do the same, please.

How about those regular sessions with the prime minister, perhaps the only time in his or her whole life when he or she can discuss problems, kick around ideas and just talk with no threat of leaking and no judgement. And get honest views on past administrations free of a political agenda. Who will chair the Commonwealth, perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the Queen's reign, and a union of nations that could be particularly influential as our world develops? 

We're not done yet; let's consider the PR value to the nation. You'll have to fund a massive increase in marketing to keep those tourism numbers above 40 million a year (pre-pandemic) when the magic of the British Royals, and the ceremonies around them, is what draws many here over other European destinations. And how about the overseas sales boosts that more than 500 British-made products get from their Royal Warrants? How many Insta influencers will we have to pay to replace that? Then there's that hard-to-measure HR and morale role, where the monarch and the royal family serve as the voice of the nation, leading the grieving in times of tragedy and the celebration in times of joy. Who will have the gravitas to take over that 3pm Christmas address that brings us together, for a few minutes, as one national family?

However you replace the Windsors, the new people who do the job ... who must be competent, charismatic, always pleasant, never complain and take on an average of 3.2 thousand official engagements a year, including a distressingly high amount of weekend and evening work ... can not be political. Not even a whiff of opinion on anything controversial can pass their lips. Because they must be a blank slate onto which all can project their hopes and ambitions. To ensure this, of course, whoever replaces the royals will have to give up their own rights to vote.

Your budget for building this new function, from the chief and his or her core assistants to all the support staff, all the travel they do and all their operating costs, is about £80 million a year. Of course, the operation currently runs at a profit, because George III swapped all the property the family owned ... the Crown Estates ... for a regular allowance. We, the taxpayer, pocket about £400 million a year off that deal after we fund the monarchy. One supposes if we relieve them of their job, we'll have to think about giving at least some of those estates back...

To be honest, few who were celebrating this weekend gave much of a thought to any of that. (This history fanatic is regularly distressed by how few modern Brits know the Crown Estates deal.) The Platinum Jubilee and its four-day weekend were an excuse for a good party. Even the most ardent anti-monarchists respect Elizabeth II and wouldn't deny her that. In what might have been a bit of monarchist karma, many of those who thought they'd skip the festivities and get out of the country were caught in disastrous airline delays and cancellations due to staffing issues. This was a weekend above all others to stay in the green and pleasant land.

Most of the world will have seen at least some of the magnificent four days of celebrations in London. I, like most of the country, came nowhere near those crowds. Our Jubilee was a gentler affair, but wherever you were, it was about community. Most houses sported bunting, neighbourhoods planned parties and people wore red, white and blue. I even got Jubilee nails.

In our bit of Hampshire the local council sponsored a scarecrow trail to encourage creativity and get people walking around. The photo below shows our community centre's efforts. Our playing fields became festival grounds for the Big Jubilee Lunch on Sunday, augmented by live music, bouncy castles and historical re-enactors hacking away at each other to the delight of the children.

Though our bunting was out in Hampshire, we spent the bulk of our weekend in Gloucestershire. If patriotic decorations liven up a modern estate, they enchant a Cotswold village. Stow-on-the-Wold was a cheerful blaze of bunting, ribbons, flags (including a fair few royal standards) and decorated shop windows. 

Friday saw us at the beacon lighting at the top of the gently sloping cricket pitch. Stow's was one of 3,500 lit simultaneously around the country. Given that I'd never attended a beacon lighting before, I was childishly excited. Given that my expectations had been set by the beacon lighting scene in The Lord of the Rings and of photos of Victorian beacons the size of three-story houses, I was disappointed. 

Health and Safety has no doubt been at work here. The beacon was a metal cage roughly the size and shape of a medium waste bin, soldered on top of a 6-foot pole and full of fire-starter-soaked logs. That was surrounded by a ring of fire buckets, then a rope barrier keeping us all at least 20 feet from the inferno. At least four officials in high viz vests stood by, ready to deal with any trouble. Unlikely in Stow, where merry makers had poured out of pub and garden parties, glass in hand, to raise a cheer in good natured solidarity.

The fireworks display that followed was more impressive. It was no urban blockbuster, but a satisfying few minutes of mostly red, white and blue bursts to the accompaniment of a few Queen tracks and the national anthem. Given the small village crowd, it had the merit of feeling like a private display. The best part of it all, however, was simply the setting. Stow-on-the-Wold sits at the highest point in the Cotswolds, 800 feet above sea level. The playing fields slope away to the west, revealing a pastoral wonderland of rolling hills and valleys (the wolds), verdant tree lines and lush fields, and frame an exquisite sunset. It must be one of the best views in England.

Local villages hosted other activities throughout the weekend, from special art exhibitions to themed dances to community lunches to decorating contests. At Sudeley Castle (which I wrote about in detail last year) they had a charming little display of coronation and modern "Elizabethan" memorabilia assembled from the owners and staff, plus several royal "sculptures" in the gardens made out of moss, leaves, flowers and other organic materials. Children could follow a special trail in search of one of the Queen's corgis.

Even though weather across most of the country turned gloomy by Saturday, people's spirits remained high. Brits are neither optimistic nor patriotic as a general rule. Only on special occasions do those qualities come to the fore, and royal jubilees make them particularly abundant. I wish we could capture and maintain that feeling, because given the ages of the monarch and her heirs it's going to be a very long time before we see another Jubilee in this country. 

However, on the 4th of June, 2024, Elizabeth will surpass Louis XIV to become the longest reigning monarch in world history. Yes, that's Louis XIV of Versailles-building, "l'etat c'est moi"-quipping fame whose descendants went to the guillotine in a flamboyant demonstration of how not to do monarchy. Beating the French is always sweet for the English. Beating that particular Frenchman with an example of how monarchy can actually add value in a modern democracy will be another excuse to party for the whole nation. Put it in your diary now, and let's do all we can to keep our beloved queen healthy, happy, and glorious for the next milestone.

Queen Elizabeth, sadly, did not make that last milestone, dying on 8 September 2022.