Goole Silver Jubilee Pageant

Not one, but three queens get the limelight in this historical pageant: Goole Gala Queen, the Charter Queen and the Silver Jubilee Queen – Joyce Carrington, Olive Clark and Judith Atkinson, respectively. Britain’s most inland port, Goole, gets to celebrate its history in a colourful pageant that seems, puzzlingly, to give a greater weight to events that long preceded Goole’s emergence in the 1620s, when Dutch Engineer Vermuyden diverted the river Don there.

A Charter of Incorporation is a royal charters that dates to back to feudal times. As it relates to a town such as Goole, it allows the town to become a self-governing entity – up to a point. Goole received its Charter on 27th - 28th October 1933, presented by Prince George, Duke of Kent. The Duke at this time was notorious for being part of the hedonistic circles that became famous in the Roaring Twenties. Having already fathered an illegitimate child in 1926, he reportedly included among his sexual conquests Barbara Cartland, Noel Coward and Anthony Blunt. Goole only really came into being with the building of the Aire & Calder canal in 1826, allowing South Yorkshire coal to be transported there by barge.