On Saturday June 4th 2022, Loosley Row celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee by holding a street party along Lower Rd. Our planning had taken many months and by late March we realised that we had quite a few Ukrainian individuals/families coming to our local villages and Princes Risborough, making the numbers likely to attend our village street party increase dramatically. The committee felt ‘the more the merrier’ and we were quite right!
Natalii Zagrebelna was asked to run the Ukrainian stall as fundraising for Ukraine, she stepped up to this challenge ably and busily got to work devising beautiful and unusual items to sell. The guests created wonderful food bouquets and fabulous traditional headdresses, which were sported by many of us during the day. They sold sunflower seedlings, ceramic sunflowers donated by www.pot_tastic.co.uk and cards donated by www.babbabing.com
After a slightly soggy start to the day, the sun shone and we set out our picnics, visited the Beer and Pimms tents and watched the puddings and cakes being judged. I spent much of my day walking up and down the street asking everybody to write a bit about themselves in my ‘autograph book’ – we plan on combining this with the photos of the day to create a celebration book. Mine was a particularly lovely job as I was able to sample many Ukrainian delicacies as I waited for people to write their bit in the book; particular thank yous go to Nataliia Dzhodzhyk for her delicious garlicky roll and Olha Hakh for her yummy sweet flat cakes- please excuse my descriptions ladies! I ended up, having not eaten any of my own picnic, with a very full stomach indeed!
Lunch was very quickly followed by the mini Olympics, at Green Acres, where all the children took part in a plethora of events and topped the whole thing off with an ice cream from Lacey’s Dairy. This was a huge hit with Ukrainian and English children playing, running, throwing and laughing together; language no barrier.
The raffle was drawn and the music started. This turned into a real treat when Natasha Albokrinova bravely sang the Ukrainian National Anthem acapella, it was an incredibly moving and particularly poignant moment in the day. Later, the music moved up to ‘Landscapes’, the cream teas having been packed away, and the dancing began. Kira, who had just had her 6th birthday only the day before, started us all off and kept us dancing even after the music had stopped!
This was a magical event where the sense of solidarity, community and generosity of spirit shone and laughter, a few tears, and huge amounts of fun were had by all. Our new friends enriched this event and we thank them.
Louisa