Last weekend saw the likes of Sir Tom Jones, Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney headlining at the Diamond Jubilee concert in honour of the Queen outside Buckingham Palace.

The concert was one of the highpoints of a holiday weekend during which people in Bradford and around the country and Commonwealth celebrated her 60 years on the throne.

During the show Madness performed on the roof of the palace. At the Golden Jubilee celebration in 2002, guitarist Brian May blasted out a rock rendition of the National Anthem from the same spot.

More than 12,000 people won tickets to watch inside the grounds, while thousands more packed the Mall enjoying the party atmosphere on the June Bank Holiday weekend.

The Queen, wearing yellow earplugs, and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived for the second half of the unprecedented pop concert, just in time to hear Eric Clapton perform Layla.

Dame Edna Everage, alias comedian Barry Humphries, spotted the Queen taking her place in the royal box and bellowed: “The Jubilee Girl is here, possums.”

The show was followed by a finale of fireworks and 15-minute sound and light show over the Palace, involving 50 searchlights on the roof and projections on to the front of the royal residence from the forecourt.

Doubters insisted that the Golden Jubilee would be a flop, with critics branding the monarchy no longer relevant.

The year began with great personal upset for the Queen following the death of her sister, Princess Margaret, and the Queen Mother within just seven weeks of one another.

When the Golden Jubilee weekend got under way, more than one million people turned out on successive days during the June Bank Holiday to party on the capital’s streets, while in the rest of the country, tens of thousands joined in.

The Queen’s nationwide tour had started on May 1 in the West Country where big crowds set the pattern for the rest of the royal visits.

A visit to Bisham Abbey on May 10 set up an encounter with England football coach Sven-Goran Eriksson when the Queen wished David Beckham’s team good luck for the World Cup. Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland were all part of the Jubilee itinerary.

The June 1 to June 4 Bank Holiday weekend saw the Palace host its groundbreaking pop concert, along with a classical one as well.

After the show, the Queen, accompanied by Prince Philip, lit the fuse of a rocket which sped down the Mall on a wire to light the national Golden Jubilee beacon. It was the last of some 1,900 which stretched from Land’s End to John O’Groats and included ones as far afield as Antarctica and Zambia.

The next day there was a stately procession to St Paul’s Cathedral, a festival in The Mall, fireworks and RAF fly-past. The Armed Forces staged a day of displays in Portsmouth on June 27.

The Queen continued to tour the country, travelling to the cities of Birmingham, Manchester for the opening of the Commonwealth Games, Nottingham and Liverpool.

On July 31, in Scunthorpe, she made history when she visited a British mosque for the first time, followed by Leicester the next day, when she visited a British Sikh temple.