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The Rockall Times’ Jubilee Years in pictures

Welcome to The Rockall Times' Golden Jubilee Years in Pictures: Five decades of the highs — and lows — of the reign of her Imperial Majestyness Queen Elizabeth II.

For your viewing pleasure, we have divided the monumentous events which have marked Liz Two's tenure into five fun-sized decades. Enjoy.

1953

Liz Two's epic 50 year stint as Queen begins with a modest coronation ceremony appropriate to a nation still labouring under the heavy burden of rationing.

Thousands of ordinary people go without food for a week to fashion crude Union Jacks in a public outpouring of support for the Royal family. Such devotion may seem strange to us now, but then Prince Edward had not yet been born.

And, to crown a perfect year for post-war Britain, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing claim Everest for the UK. Gawd bless yer guvnors.

1954

The euphoria surrounding the new monarch's ascension to the throne soon turns to disappointment as the nation fails miserably to notch up one significant achievement.

True, Roger Bannister clocks up the fastest-ever mile in May, but since this lasts less than four minutes, it hardly compensates for a mediocre year.

Elsewhere, the US shows how it's done with a spectacular CIA-led coup in Guatemala marking its commitment to democracy in Latin America. And, golfing wife-beater Bing Crosby stars in the seminal White Christmas. Britain welcomes this feel-good movie with open arms, much as it would later embrace any US TV product, irrespective of merit.

1955

Britain is back where it truly belongs as Liz Two claims Rockall for the UK. This daring piece of paper-signing trumpets a resounding Rule Britannia to Iceland, Ireland and Denmark, all of whom have ambitions on the Rock.

True, the dispute would last for another twenty acrimonious years, but never again would foreign feet alight on our liveliest volcanic outcrop.

Iceland, meanwhile, temporarily abandons its maritime pretensions and instead dedicates itself to producing highly-talented elfin chanteuse Bjork. Likewise, Ireland prepares Michael Flaherty to later excitingly redefine traditional Irish dance. What Denmark does over the next forty years is anybody's guess.

There's more on the fascinating history of Rockall here.

1956

Rule the waves we may do, but that dominion doesn't extend to foreign canals, as events in Egypt prove.

In response to president Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal, the UK government floods the area with troops, bombs Port Said and generally throws its weight around, much to the disgust of the United Nations.

Forced into a humiliating back-down, Britain at least has the consolation of not being ordered to hand back the thousands of borrowed Egyptian artefacts displayed in the British Museum. Fifty years on, we've still got 'em, plus the Elgin Marbles — and they're not going anywhere either.

1957

As the UK and US are technologically humiliated by the Russians' launch of Sputnik, we show that we've still got what it takes to mix it up with the world's best.

A spectacular train crash in Lewisham, south London, kills 90 and sets a new benchmark in rail disaster excellence. The UK is still considered a world leader in the rapid dispatch of commuters, although former colony India has made superb progress in emulating our achievements.

1958

The formation of the EEC sees Europe firmly set on course for disaster.

Britain, however, resolutely refuses to be party to this burgeoning Eurostate, thereby ensuring that to this day an Englishman can eat an English apple in his English garden without his enjoyment being tainted by the distant sound of rioting asylum seekers.

Neither has his green and pleasant land been corrupted by republican notions of all-day drinking, cheap fags and a Bill of Rights. And as for Liz Two — she's still beams out munificently from a five-pound note, as God dictated.

1959

Huge excitement as we unveil the world's first passenger-carrying hovercraft and the much-loved Mini. The 100 per cent British hovercraft looks set to revolutionise the transport industry as manufacturers greedily eye the world's export markets.

Suffice it to say our inbred sense of modesty prevents us — as it did with with the jet engine and the digital computer — from properly exploiting this invention. Accordingly, minimum investment and a refusal to develop a clear strategy ends with the gradual decline in the hovercraft's viability. The US bravely takes up the reins and produces a vastly superior product which its military still enjoys today.

The Mini, however, proves a great success, and continues to be Britain's best-loved German car.

1960

As the world staggers uncertainly into a new decade, Granada Television prepares to refine our notions of TV entertainment.

Watch with Mother gives way to gritty realism as the hard-drinking, straight-talking Mancunians of Coronation Street give the nation a shocking insight into the harsh realities of inner-city Britain.

There will be many a tear shed, many a pint pulled and many an "Eee oop chuck" as "Corrie" establishes itself as the grandmother of all soaps.

Many years later, middle-class viewers are rewarded with their own bastard son of Corrie — Brookside — which breaks new ground in its no-holds-barred depiction of the harsh realities of inner-city Britain. The series also pushes back the envelope in being the only soap which does not revolve around a pub. This is considered a shocking innovation at the time.

1961

Amid growing tensions between NATO and the Soviet Union, the pressure is relieved somewhat when the Russkies decide to divide Berlin down the middle with an enormous wall.

The aptly-named "Berlin Wall" allays once and for all widespread fears that a united Germany would be unable to repress its instinctive desire to drive tanks into neighbouring countries, thereby provoking another world war.

The bold plan worked. There follow almost thirty years of peace until the wall's fall in 1989. A reunited Germany then sets about its genetic destiny of world domination — not with Panzers, but simply through the acquisition of foreign car manufacturers.

1962

Liz Two's first ten years in office end on a high note with the release of The Beatles' Love me do. The loveable Liverpudlian mop-tops quickly overshadow the threat of all-out nuclear war posed by the Cuban missile crisis and come to dominate world music, conquering Europe and the US in short order.

This love affair is short-lived, however, as John Lennon declares the group "more popular than Jesus". Although this statement proves statistically correct, there follows an orgy of hysterical record-burning as Americans affirm their commitment to free speech.

Lennon himself would later be gunned down outside his New York apartment by Mark Chapman, who apparently objects violently to the singer's Japanese wife — in common with just about everybody else on the planet.

More monumentous events in pictures

1953-1962

1963-1972

1973-1982

1983-1992

1993-2002

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