Some weekends last more than a weekend. Some last forever. Older generations have spoken and written of summer weekends in 1939, when the sun seemed wary of setting, hesitant to let history carry on.
And as Britain began the longest bank holiday in its history, there was the feeling, yesterday, of a special time: people will remember this time. They may remember it for 1,000 different reasons; gone are the days of 1939, when England’s collective memory seemed to be of mown grass and a lazy aircraft circling overhead. Memories of the June 2002 weekend will be more prosaic, more diverse. The Irish fans queuing outside London pubs at 7am to watch their team draw spectacularly with Cameroon. The English fans wandering the streets at teatime, heavy with hangovers and sunshine after a day’s World Cup-watching. The passionate monarchists filing eagerly, hugely curious, into the rarely seen back gardens of Buckingham Palace for last night’s jubilee Prom at the Palace, after an afternoon spent straining to hear the distant sounds of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa rehearsing for her performance of Dove sono from The Marriage of Figaro. The many tourists, splendid in their indifference to royalty, still caught up in the preparations outside the palace, and caught up in the sunshine. But memories there will surely be.
