Platinum Jubilee: Bruno Peek's beacons to honour Queen across the world

The Queen's pageant master has said it has been "an honour" to carry out the role.

Bruno Peek, who lives in Gorleston, Norfolk, is overseeing Platinum Jubilee celebrations including the lighting of 3,000 beacons around the world.

Beacons from Australia to Zambia will illuminate the night on 2 June, with a central sculpture set ablaze in London.

Mr Peek said lighting beacons in Commonwealth countries "had never been done before".

"I always think a pageant master is like a ringmaster, it's basically in control of all the acts that are taking place during the show," he said.

"There is a lot of pressure but the one thing I've always liked doing is bringing people together.

"It's an honour, and I still pinch myself."

Queen Elizabeth II is the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, and the beacons - an ancient form of communication and a sign of unity - have long been used to mark royal jubilees and weddings.

"When I was first asked to the do the Platinum Jubilee beacons, I said to the palace there would be about 1,500 because of Covid and cost of living, but the way things are going there will be at least 3,300," he said.

Mr Peek has previously organised events and beacon chains to mark the millennium, the Queen's Golden and Diamond Jubilees as well as her 90th birthday.

"I don't think people realise the uniqueness of this jubilee... we'll never see another Platinum Jubilee. Never. For several lifetimes," he said.

"We've got beacons being lit on the four highest peaks in the UK to signal the four nations of the UK coming together that night in tribute of Her Majesty the Queen."

Beacons will be lit on the first night of the four-day bank holiday weekend, with flames ignited in the capital cities of 54 Commonwealth countries and UK Overseas Territories at 21:15 local time.

Across the UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man, the lighting will take place at 21:45 BST, with Hadrian's Wall beacons set alight at 22:00.

The first beacons will be in Tonga and Samoa in the South Pacific and the final one in Belize, Central America.

Mr Peek, born to Polish parents in King's Lynn and placed in a children's home before being adopted aged four, said he had worked as a baker, butcher, welder and in the offshore industry, before reinstating Great Yarmouth carnival and going on to become pageant master.

"If I can bring people together through beacons, which have been a symbol of pageantry and celebration for the royal family since Queen Victoria, that's the way you start working on international and national projects," he said.

"That way you can bring people from all walks of life together."

When asked what he might say to the Queen - who will be celebrating 70 years of public duty - during his final event, Mr Peek said: "I think it will just be thank you, thank you for allowing me to serve you."

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