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Queen Elizabeth is celebrating her Platinum Jubilee, which begins on June 2 and runs through the weekend, concluding on June 5. There will be days full of celebration and one man is helping to kick off the festivities.
Bruno Peek is the Queen’s beacon pageant master who participated in the monarch’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees. Peek’s role is to coordinate the beacon-lighting ceremony in honor of Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years on the throne.
Peek, 70, is currently a pageant master, but has taken on a series of other roles in his life including a welder, baker, butcher and builder’s laborer prior to becoming the Queen’s beacon master.
Pageant master of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons Bruno Peek, center, with the Jubilee Crystal Diamond, at the Tower of London, in central London, where the crystal is to be kept until Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
(Photo by Dominic Lipinski/PA Images via Getty Images)
Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee took place in 2002 and her Diamond Jubilee ten years later in 2012.
The Queen’s Jubilee’s official website states there will be three beacon events taking place.
The first will be several lighting ceremonies throughout the United Kingdom and its territories. The second will consist of lighting of torches throughout the 54 main cities in the Commonwealth and lastly, the Principal Beacon will be lit by a member of the royal family.
Years ago in the U.K., beacons were used to send messages of an invasion and first began a symbol of celebration at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
Queen Elizabeth accompanied by Prince Charles and Bruno Peek, Originator and pageant master as she lights a beacon to celebrate Her Majesty’s birthday on April 21, 2016, in Windsor, England.
(Photo by Arthur Edwards – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Peek shared with People magazine that Queen Elizabeth enjoys the beacons, but is not fond of fireworks, which were present at her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
“As I walked off stage that night, the fireworks were going on and she looked at me and she gave me this lovely smile,” Peek recalled. “And she said, ‘Do you know what it reminds me — it is the Blitz all over again.'”
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The magazine also reported that Peek organizes the entire event from his home in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He was approached by Edward Young – the Queen’s private secretary – in November 2020 and asked to return to coordinate the beacons.
Peek shared that he planned for 1,500 beacons, but there have been over 2,000 registered to honor the Queen.
Bruno Peek hands Queen Elizabeth a torch for her to light the first beacon in honor of her 90th birthday in Windsor on April 21, 2016. Peek has served as the Queen’s pageant master in both her Golden and Diamond Jubilees.
(ARTHUR EDWARDS/AFP via Getty Images)
As the beacon ceremony will mark the beginning of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Peek shared with the outlet that he will be sad to see the week comes to an end.
“I don’t mind admitting, I’m gonna shed a few tears that night,” Peek said.
The Queen’s pageant master is preparing for this to be her last jubilee.
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“She’s very caring, very understanding, very polite. And she makes you feel very welcome when you’re in her presence. And I just feel that, sadly, when she leaves this earth, there’s gonna be a big hole.”
On top of all the upcoming festivities, Peek was hit by a bus and “left for dead” in March.
According to ITV News Anglia, he was walking in his hometown when a bus struck him, leading to several stitches for his head wound.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip ride along the Mall in an open-top car on their way to watch a parade in celebration of the Golden Jubilee in 2002.
(Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
“It knocked me unconscious and I had to be taken to hospital so they could give me a full check up, including my heart as I have a heart condition,” he told the outlet.
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“I was there for several hours and had to have stitches in the top of my head to seal the wound which the doctor said would take around 10 days to heal.
“The driver of the bus did not stop, so basically left me there not knowing whether I was alive or dead, which has had a great personal impact on me.”
