The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacon

Mountain Top Beacon to Celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – organised jointly by Risca Town Council and Cymdeithas Twmbarlwm Society.

Thursday 2nd June 2022

CLICK HERE to go straight to a gallery of photos

What a great day to be part of – The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacon – thousands of similar beacons were lit, not only around the UK but all around the globe throughout the commonwealth countries.

After month’s of planning the joint organisers, Cymdeithas Twmbarlwm Society and the Risca Community Council, led a team of willing volunteers up to the top of Twmbarlwm to light our commemorative beacon – at a height of 419m it’s the highest peak in south Wales.

We are very grateful to members of the local Fire Service who provided a 4×4 vehicle and three strong men to transport  the Beacon and bottles of gas to the top – and bring it all down again. Their willingness to help was exemplary.

And a huge thank you to the 1st Abercarn Scouts who helped guide visitors up the mountain and more importantly back down again in the dark. They are certainly a great bunch of lads and lasses who are a credit to the scout uniform and their parents.

Also in attendance were a team from the St John’s Ambulance Service – judging the amount of gear they had, nobody was ever in danger of medical emergency – it’s great to have such a professional organisation to look after public events like this.

Guest of Honour, Chris Evans MP, who is acting president of the Twmbarlwm Society, delivered a short speech and dedication to the Queen and led a rendition of the National Anthem before the lighting of the Beacon.

We were more than happy to allow scout Rhys Richards, who recently received the Chief Scouts Gold Award, the honour of actually lighting the Beacon.

We were blessed with perfect, fine weather and were treated to a beautiful sunset. The Beacon burned brightly for half hour while the gathered throng of about 150 visitors marvelled at the views around us and tried to identify the location of other beacons that we could see alight on mountain tops far and wide. Clearly visible were several beacons on the other side of the Severn Channel, beacons to the north towards Brecon, beacons in Cardiff and beyond and those towards Torfaen and up the Usk valley.

There was a collective groan when the flame burned low and was extinguished – but everyone lent a hand to dismantle everything and transport everything back down the hill to the car park – with the scouts leading the way and lighting the path to ensure there were no accidents in the pitch dark.

An aside story I would like to add here is about Mr Cedric Mumford – he has been a member of CTS since it’s inception and he has the unique claim to fame on this night because he was also at the first Twmbarlwm Beacon event for her majesty on the occasion of her coronation in 1953 – 70 years ago.

Cedric was in the scouts on that first occasion and helped build a bonfire on top of Twmbarlwm and he clearly remembers how someone had to crawl inside the bonfire to light it and how they all watched in awe as other bonfires started to be lit on hill tops far and wide.

A far cry from the organisational hurdles we had to jump in order to light a simple gas burner today – but the views around are no less spectacular nowadays.

Thank you and well done for coming Cedric.

Before I sign off from this post I would like to publicly thank Risca Town Council for their part in helping to organise this event and to all the CTS members who helped.

TERRY EVANS,
Chairman Cymdeithas Twmbarlwm Society

There is a gallery of photographs on the society’s google gallery site – https://bit.ly/3tdps9w – but if you have photos of the event that you would like to share with us please send them to twmbarlwmsociety@gmail.com