Jubilee pictures: Bishop Monkton

The choir entertained an audience of 120 in the Village Hall, near Ripon, last Wednesday evening with a show entitled Seven Decades of Song with music from the 1940s to the present day.

The concert included hits from musicals like Oklahoma and the Sound of Music as well as more recent numbers from Leonard Cohen and Gary Barlow.

“The choir grew out of the village’s Singing for Fun Group which had started just before the pandemic and which kept going through the Covid lockdowns by meeting on Zoom,” said spokesman Colin Philpott.

“The show included a live rendition of a song called Lockdown, written during Covid by the village’s Jubilee Queen, Pauline Beecroft, to the tune of the Petula Clark 1960s hit Downtown.

“The concert ended with the singing of Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory and the National Anthem.”

The following day, an estimated 400 people - more than half the population of Bishop Monkton - turned out for a village sports day and children’s games.

Some 21 teams competed in seven different games based on sports clubs represented in the village.

A host of other entertainment and displays were staged throughout the Platinum Jubilee weekend, including a display of villagers’ wedding dresses and wedding photos from throughout the Queen’s reign, festival flowers in the parish church, duck race and hog roast.

Screenings were attended by almost 200 people of a film about previous Royal celebrations in the village during the Queen’s reign.

And events drew to a close on Sunday with a street party, attended by over 450 people, with fancy dress parade.