Shire towns gear up for royal celebration The bunting is up, the pork pies have been ordered and the wellies are ready to be wanged. The throwing of wellington boots - or welly wanging - is just one of many festivities the small town of Burford, North Oxfordshire, has planned to celebrate the Queen's 60-year reign. Residents will also light a beacon, ring church bells and smash china, as well as eating and drinking at a traditional street party. Burford has been preparing for next weekend's diamond jubilee celebrations for months. While some city dwellers seem nonchalant about the event, valuing it simply as an extra day off work, villages are embracing the opportunity to celebrate her majesty. "The royal family are riding on a crest of a wave," said David Cohen, 62, the town's former mayor who is helping organise the event. We are very much a royalist community who believe they bring dignity to this country. Republicanism has gone out of fashion in Britain, with the latest poll showing 69 per cent of Brits now think the country would be worse-off without a monarch - the largest margin since the question was first asked in 1997. The UK may have just entered a double-dip recession but the fact has not deterred the celebrations. Every shop on Burford's high street is festooned with flags - including one two-storeys high - and the windows are filled with jubilee merchandise, from Queen-themed shot glasses to Union Flag ukuleles. The town of 1,100 people is spending 10 per cent of its annual budget on the event. In tough economic times, the royals represent a continuity with the past that is felt strongly in the stone villages of the Cotswolds. Over tea, three long-time residents reel off a long list of royal visits to Burford - from Queen Elizabeth I who crossed the bridge on a hunting trip in 1574, to Prince Charles who unveiled a plaque at the turn of the millennium. The celebrations will follow a familiar pattern set by the silver and golden jubilees, and the coronation before them. Peter Harris, 73, a retired verger, will attend the street party with three other residents who celebrated the coronation together in 1953. "It was all very exciting because we had the first TVs - everyone clustered around to watch it," he said. The royals are part of the fabric of society. But it is not just the older generation who are looking forward to the party. At the small primary school, the children are well-versed in the royal family after a speech by one of Oxfordshire's deputy Lord Lieutenants, the Queen's representatives in the counties. Georgia Duff, 10, is impressed by the - to her, unimaginable - length of the Queen's tenure. "She's done a lot of hard work for our country over the past 60 years," she said. The headteacher, who will spend six hours bell-ringing for the jubilee next Sunday, thinks it is important children learn about the family so integral to Britain's history. But for many, it is the younger royals - in particular the recently married Prince William and Kate Middleton - that make the monarchy relevant, rather than its antiquity. After a rocky decade in the 1990s, when the Queen dubbed one year as an "annus horribilis" after a fire at Windsor Castle and divorces in the family, the royal wedding last year helped boost its popularity. Behind the bar at the Cotswold Arms pub, Chris Jones, 32, said: "The Queen's a bit traditional, she's an 80-year-old with not much to say to most of the population. But I can relate to William, Kate and Harry more. Mr Jones is looking forward to extra custom over the long weekend and thinks the diamond jubilee marks the start of a summer of celebrating Britishness, climaxing in the Olympics. "The country needs a good lift," he said. The jubilee has also excited the tourists, who flock to Burford to see its quaint architecture. Canadian Jan Jones, 65, is busy snapping pictures of the decorations. "I think it's wonderful - I'm going to fill a whole page in my album with the photos," she said. I love the Queen. She's the best representative Great Britain has. Foreigners will be welcome at the town's celebrations next weekend, especially if they join in the welly wanging. "You haven't lived until you've wanged a welly," Mr Cohen laughs.