The sun shone on the day the Olympic Games commenced in London 2012. At twelve minutes past eight an art event took place across the land with as many bells ringing for 3 minutes including the striking of Big Ben, the only occasion the clock struck out of sequence since the ending of World War II. There were arranged events including at Beverley in Yorkshire. The Culture Secretary was on the Naval ship H M S Belfast moored on the Thames near Tower Bridge and when he gave a demonstration for one media provider the handball came apart and fell off missing a woman standing nearby. I almost felt sorry for Jeremy Hunt, but not quite and hopefully this will be another nail in his Ministerial Coffin.
The Torch completed its last movement around London commencing at Hampton Court Palace including guided tour of the Royal Maze. It was then carried by four gold medal Matthew Pincent on the Royal barge which had led the Diamond Jubilee River pageant. With sets of rowers the flame was taken on a five hour river journey to Tower Bridge where it remained until being taken to the Olympic stadium for the opening ceremony. By whom and by what means remained a secret.
The previous day had seen a visit to the Palace to be greeted by Prince William and his wife and brother Harry, a bus along Oxford Street with a huge crowd either side, the Absolutely Fabulous duo, Sir Bruce Forthsythe and others with a visit to the Prime Minister outside number 10. It has been taken across the Millennium Bridge from the City to the South Bank and Shakespeare’s Globe and taken on a trip around the London Eye.
I have followed the movement of the flame around GB, on the live feed after discovering it was available, too late for its travels around the North East although there were several good reports on regional TV as well as snippets of the some of the key moments and people on national news channels. It was possible to learn about all 8000 Torch bearers on the official website which includes short films on the highlights of each day. If the opportunity arises later in the year I hope to do some justice to the Torch relay which certainly lit the British imagination with millions lining the route as the relay progressed. It left two questions as the evening approached. Would the opening ceremony live up to expectations and could team GB match and even excel on their brilliant performance in Beijing?
In this short piece I will attempt to answer that first question. The opening ceremony would have to be good, not just because of the expenditure of £27 million but the wish of everyone involved to do Britain proud. We were promised that no attempt would be made to compete with Beijing which had lots of WOW factors and portrayed a nation with a huge population undergoing major changes under a Communist dictatorship
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There had been a red, white and blue fly past of the Red Arrows across Scotland, Ireland and Wales and at 20.12 they flew across London and over the Olympic Park hence the selection of 08.12 for the bell ringing in the morning.
On the night there was too much to take in even for the TV cameras. The opening feature included a cottage/croft with smoking chimney, various live animals(goats, geese, a shire horse cows and sheep), a game of cricket on a village green, maypoles and working in the fields. Among the fixtures was a hill topped by a tree. I am not sure if the giant water wheel was at the beginning or appeared during the early stages as it was able to disappear later.
The performance was started by the chiming of a huge bell created at the Whitechapel Bell factory which I noted on a walkabout after visiting the Whitechapel Gallery. This was undertaken by a surprise appearance of Bradley Wiggins, winner of the Tour de France. A choir had sang Jerusalem, followed by Danny Boy, the Flower of Scotland and Cym Rhondda (Bread of Heaven) to demonstrate the coverage of the United Kingdom.
There had also been an aerial shot of the second major scene taken by a national newspaper, This shows industrial UK with the appearance of tall chimneys and men coming from the bowls of the earth. The segment was opened by Kenneth Branagh in the guise of Isabard Brunel recited from the Tempest “ A land full of noises and this was the cue for a chorus of drumming led by Evelyn Glenny.
In the central area there were five large rings being forged and these were then raised still red hot into the air and merged to form the Olympic symbol. At some point out side the stadium a set of Olympic rings was launched into stratosphere from two balloons and from which later a shot of earth was taken, but somehow this was lost in the great scheme of things.
There was a march of the women’s suffrage movement with two grand daughters of the Pankhurst family leading. There was also reference to Trade Unionism and the Jarrow March and Pearly Kings and Queens. And then bringing the 20th century up todate there was a group of Chelsea Pensioners and a collection of Sergeant Peppers and an inflatable Yellow Submarine. The arrival of the Windrush which brought the first West Indian settlers to help with London Transport and our hospitals heralded the beginning of multi cultural London. Under the Labour Administration of Tony Blair London became one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world.
I think it was at this point that apart from the grassy hill and water wheel the stadium was cleared of everything else in preparation for the third segment. I am also not sure at which point between the major scene changes did we have the two comic events of the evening. In the first there was James Bond (Daniel Craig) entering Buckingham Palace with the Corgis including one doing a tummy over and then entering a room with the Queen, the real one at a desk. She says Good evening Mr Bond and they are seen going downstairs and outside and into a helicopter. We see Craig in the Helicopter with someone dressed as the Queen and both appear to launch out of the craft above the stadium in parachutes. It was at this point that the Queen enters the stadium to take up her place with the President of the Olympic games and with the Duke of Edinburgh already in position. Other members of the Royal family including the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall and the Princes two sons with the Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Anne who is on the International Olympic Committee were also in their seats.
The second comic moment came when Sir Simon Rattle conducted the London Symphony orchestra playing Chariots of Fire only to have a keyboard played by a one fingered Rowan Atkinson whose strength is his facial expressions which would have been lost on the majority of the audience dependent on large screen high above to gain an idea of what was happening.
The third segment would have had visitors a little bewildered by the concentration on the Great Ormond Street Hospital with children on sixty beds which they used as Trampolines and where the beds formed G O S H and then N H S. 600 real doctors and nurses and other NHS staff from around the UK were also involved.
The emphasis was also on childhood with the creator of Harry Potter J K Rowling reading a bedtime story and a number of Mary Poppins floating down into the arena. This led to the final scene of a house which was lifted at one point to reveal the creator of the World Wide web Sir Tim Berners Lee. On another structure brief scenes from British TV and Films were shown while thousands of young people became disco and rock dancers from Glam to punk. Music was provided live by the Artic Monkeys.
The pageant was titled Lands of Dreams and designed to show the recent history of the UK and some of the characteristics of the people, openness and generosity, a little eccentricity and daftness. Before the pageant ends there was a moment of silence with images of those killed on 7/7 while a group of soldiers stood in a field of poppies and as Emeli Sandé sang Abide with me and dancer performed a piece to signal life reborn and ongoing.
This led to the arrival of the Athletes, coaches and officials from the 204 participating countries, Gibraltar has participated in the past in the shooting competition but did not feature this year. Attention is paid as to who leads in each team holding the flag and where a holster is used or the flag is held in one and at arms length. The honour this year for Team GB went to Sir Chris Hoy. Each of the flags was planted on the grassed hill. There was still a question of where was the Olympic cauldron and with the planting of the flags the transformation of the hill could be ruled out. In order to ensure the Athletes kept roughly to the time table hundreds of the 7400 volunteers kept a drumming beat which given the hour this took was a remarkable feat in itself.
The Torch was taken from Tower Hill in a speed boat driven by David Beckham with Dame Kelly Holmes holding the flame. Later it was seen speeding to a landing stage at the Olympic Park and as the barge which led the Regatta is now also docked within the Olympic Park there must be a route via the Thames to the Park which is in effect an island.
The Queen formerly opened the game with speeches from Lord Coe and by the President of the Olympic Games Committee who emphasised that the Games were coming home because it was in the UK that modern sports had originated spreading out around the world. In the Royal Box was also The Prime Minister and former Prime Ministers John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown together with the Mayor of London and I assume the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingston was also present, together with Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister and the present Sports Minister.
The Olympic Flag was carried into the stadium by a number of personalities including the Secretary of Liberty Shami Chakribarti has also been an advisor to the Leveson Committee, There was a leading campaigner in protecting the Rain Forest, Marina Silva, Daniel Barenboim the conductor of the orchestra with Jewish and Arab musicians. Mohammed Ali with an assistant was also present to touch the flag as a participant. The General Secretary of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon, Doreen Lawrence the mother of murdered Stephen Lawrence, Hailee Gerbrelassi, the African Long distance runner and Lemah Gibowee, the African Peace activist also participated which led one Tory Member of Parliament scumbag to sounds off about multiculturalism. David Cameron is alleged to have said the tweeter was a twat. There are those in the USA who would have seen reacted adversely that this was a pinko communism especially with the part about the NHS. I thought Fox was ignoring the event until hearing there was a delayed time showing in the USA but this nevertheless meant they could support the Romney outburst about London not being ready. God help America and us if he becomes President.
After taking the Olympic Oath the representatives of the 10000 at athletes together with their coaches and officials said to number a further five to seven thousand, the volunteers and 65000 in the stadium, restricted because of the displays and the billion odd said to be watching around the world, the remaining question was where was the Olympic Cauldron and who would light it.
The cauldron consists of 204 arms with golden tops laying flat in the centre of the arena and which then rose to form the cauldron. It was a beautiful moment. It was lit not by one athlete but by six promising athletes of the future each nominated by a distinguished British Olympians who included Mary Peters. They were named as Callum Airlie, Jordan Duckitt, Desiree Henry, Katie Kirk, Cameron MacRitchie, Aidan Reynolds, and Adelle Tracey, conveying the 2012 Games' aim to "inspire a generation" . I have not been able to find out about these young people. They were invited to a meeting with Danny Boyle the creator of the event, each with a parent to learn of the honour being given and under oath not to divulge to anyone which the one young person interviewed afterwards admitted she had found it difficult to do.
The evening ends with Sir Pail McCartney playing Hey Jude as a sing along to stagger the departure. So what was my reaction. A little disappointed that there was not one great moment of WOW but I felt it did communicate who we have become.
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