Tameside and Glossop will make history on Thursday night (2 June) when the area will have the huge honour of lighting the very first national beacon for The Queen's Platinum Jubilee. 

The very first beacon to be lit will be the NHS beacon hosted by Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust. 

In all 2,022 beacons across the UK will be lit for a spectacular evening of celebration, culminating in the lighting of the principal beacon at Buckingham Palace.

The Trust has worked with Tameside College to make it is a very special local event after welding students at the college were given old and broken hospital beds and, with the help of design colleagues, fashioned  them into a crown-shaped beacon fit for the occasion. 

The beacon has been in place for a week now ready for tonight’s ceremony.

Instead of the traditional gas flame, and in keeping with the Trust’s green agenda - the distinctive blue of the NHS will shine across the giant metal sculpture in a spectacular light display against a backdrop of red, white and blue lights.

Trust Chief Executive, Karen James OBE, said: “We will never see an occasion quite like it again. A platinum anniversary is a remarkable achievement and to be a key part of it is wonderful for both the Trust and the college.”

Bruno Peek LVO OBE OPR, Pageantmaster of The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacons, said: “I am thrilled that the spotlight will be on Tameside and Glossop and that the NHS and college students have come together to create something stunning and unique.”

The national timetable for Thursday is as follows:

• At 2pm hundreds of town criers and 50 Pearly Kings and Queens will announce a specially-written Proclamation heralding the lighting of the beacons later that evening.

• At 9.35pm local time across the UK and Commonwealth, traditional and Northumbrian pipers and pipe bands will play Diu Regnare, a unique tune specially-written for the occasion by Piper Major, Stuart Liddell, the world’s leading piper.

• At 9.40pm buglers linked to local beacon lightings across the UK and the capital cities of the Commonwealth will officially announce the lighting of the beacons with a specially written bugle call, entitled Majesty.

• Then at 9.45pm exactly local time, and to coincide with the lighting of the beacons, community choirs across all nations will sing ‘Song for the Commonwealth, which has been written and composed by Lucy Keily, from Australia and Vincent Atueyi Chinemelu from Nigeria.