Watford’s traffic will be brought to a stop in many parts of the town on Tuesday, June 7, when more than 60 roads will be used for street parties to mark the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

Applications from all parts of Watford have been flooding into Watford Town Hall for permission to hold the street parties.

It’s not like it was after the war. Then neighbours were able spontaneously to drag tressles into the middle of the road, turn radios on in unison or manoeuvre a piano onto a verge, and have a meal and knees up in sheer celebration.

Now traffic is a major consideration. So street party organisers have to write to the town hall for permission.

[From the Watford Observer of April 15, 1977]