Royal Yacht to be part of Queen's birthday parade

One of British Queen Elizabeth II's favourite Royal Yachts, 'Britannia', will form the central feature of a parade in the heart of London to mark her 90th birthday celebrations next weekend.
'Britannia' was decommissioned in the late 1990s after carrying the royal family on 968 official voyages during years of service.
The British monarch famously shed a tear at its decommissioning ceremony in 1997.
Now a model of the vessel will be among the floats that travel down the Mall as part a carnival parade being staged next Sunday to celebrate her role as patron of dozens of charities and organisations.

"It's something that both the Queen and the duke [husband Prince Philip] were immensely proud of and have very fond memories of - those tours of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. It reflected the element of what she [Britannia] projected around the Commonwealth - Britishness," said Peter Phillips, the Queen's eldest grandson whose company is organisation the birthday spectacular.
According to 'The Sunday Times', the parade on June 12, designed by Ala Lloyd - who was involved in the production of the 2012 London Olympics opening and closing ceremonies -is being divided thematically into the decades of the Queen's reign, with clothes, designs, dances and music from each period evoking the spirit of the era, from the Fifties up to the Millennium.

It will climax with a yet-to-be-revealed finale - though the emphasis will be very much on the organisations supported by the Queen, which include Cancer Research UK, the British Red Cross and Barnardo's, rather than on the appearanceof any celebrities.

Lining the Mall as the parade goes past will be 10,000 guests from the Queen's charities who have paid 150 pounds a head to attend a giant street party, the Patron's Lunch, with picnic hampers from Marks and Spencer (M&S).
Phillips said he hoped the event, to be televised by the BBC, would bring "the fun element" to the celebrations, which will include a thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral in London on Friday and Trooping the Colour on Saturday.

The Sunday parade will muster at Horse Guards Parade and follow the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh down the Mall.
They will watch the parade from a royal box on the Queen Victoria memorial in front of Buckingham Palace.