A boy from the Tonga Scouts will start a fire on Monday morning that will go on to spread across the world. The flames will move westward to New Zealand, then to South Australia, Shanghai, Nanking, Islamabad and Riyadh. They will tear across Europe and at nightfall they will reach the shores of Britain, borne aloft by the unlikely hands of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
More than 4,200 beacons will be lit to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. It is thought to be the longest beacon chain attempted yet.
The Queen is due to light the final beacon in front of Buckingham Palace at 10.30pm. Bruno Peek, the pageantmaster in charge of the worldwide web of fire, can scarcely contain his enthusiasm. Mr Peek, who organised a network of 1,800 beacons for the Golden Jubilee in 2002, had originally intended to set up 2,012 for this year’s celebration but was inundated with volunteers. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a world record,” he told The Times.
“I’m absolutely thrilled and flabbergasted with the fact that we have more than doubled the number of beacons we were looking for to be lit in celebration of this historic moment. One of the things I wanted to do to make this event unique was to have four gas beacons taken up the four highest peaks in the UK, because it had never happened before.”
Ben Nevis, Snowdon, Slieve Donard and Scafell Pike will each be scaled by a team from one of Britain’s leading charities. A group of 14 wounded soldiers will mount the assault on Ben Nevis.
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The expedition will be led by Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Steed, the officer in charge of a programme for helping soldiers in Scotland to recover from injuries and mental health problems. He believes that going up Britain’s highest mountain and descending in darkness will be “bread and butter” for his unit. “I’m the old man of the group,” he said. “If I’m worried about anyone on the trip, it’s me.”
Each of the soldiers on the climb bears his or her own scars. The beacon will be lit by a serviceman who lost both legs in the line of duty, and one of his team-mates was haunted by memories of coming under heavy fire in Afghanistan.
“He was involved in some quite complex military actions, and in some of them he witnessed some of his colleagues being killed and wounded,” Colonel Steed said. “But he is very close to coming back as a bright, confident member of society — and this journey will be a big part of that.”
The first group to sign up for a beacon was the highest — and probably the smallest — school in the country. Flash CofE Primary School, situated 1,518ft above sea level in the Staffordshire Moorlands, has eight pupils and one teacher.