Get Ready for a Busy Royal Spring After Historic Events in London Announced
The Royal Family will help celebrate a major anniversary this May.
Royal fans have been fairly spoiled in recent years with multiple royal weddings, Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee and The King's coronation. But with no major royal commemorations in the books for quite some time (knock on wood), it's been very much business as usual these days. However, with the 80th anniversary of VE Day approaching in May, expect the Royal Family to join in for a busy period of national celebrations.
The U.K. government announced a lineup of events for this year's milestone VE Day—the holiday that marks the end of World War II in Europe—and it'll be a jam-packed four days of commemorations. The celebrations will begin on Monday, May 5, which is a bank holiday in the U.K., and run through Thursday, May 8.
VE Day fell on May 8, 1945 and to kick off the anniversary events on May 5, there will be an exciting military procession through London to Buckingham Palace. Like fans see during Trooping the Colour each year, there will also be a flypast of military aircraft over the palace. While members of the Royal Family are certainly expected to be part of the event, whether they will make a balcony appearance in some form is debatable.
"I think if you had all the family on the balcony in May for VE Day, then had them all back on the balcony again a month later for his birthday, it might fill a bit like overkill," royal author Robert Hardman told Marie Claire earlier this year, referencing the timing of The King's birthday parade in June.
Per the BBC, May 5 will also feature "a party on the warship HMS Belfast, on the Thames, and street parties around the country," making it likely that senior royals could—like they did during the coronation weekend—divide and conquer by attending various events.
Queen Elizabeth (then Princess Elizabeth), the Queen Mother, Winston Churchill, King George VI and Princess Margaret waved to the public from the Buckingham Palace balcony on VE Day in 1945.
Other commemorations include an installation of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London, a concert at Westminster Hall, a service at Westminster Abbey and "a concert for 10,000 members of the public" to wrap up the anniversary celebrations.
Hardman told Marie Claire that the public should "expect to see them at events, but not necessarily a balcony," pointing out that during the 50th anniversary of VE Day in 1995, "there was a balcony appearance, but it was only The Queen, Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother because they were on the balcony in 1945 and they were part of that wartime generation."
While The King and Queen Camilla weren't alive on VE Day, Queen Elizabeth served her country during World War II as a mechanic and driver in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Kate Middleton also has a family tie to WWII, as her parental grandmother worked at Bletchley Park, the secret Allied code-breaking base.
One woman who also worked at Bletchley Park spoke to the BBC about seeing the Royal Family on VE Day in 1945. Ruth Bourne, 98, shared how London had "an electric buzz among everyone" that day, sharing how "eventually the royals came out and waved, and we cheered like crazy waving whatever we had on us."
"People climbed on every available lamppost, lit bonfires in Hyde Park and we sat around singing songs. Not many went to bed that night," she recalled.
As for the Royal Family's full plans to mark VE Day, watch this space.
