England puts its best foot forward for the Jubilee

Party time: Royalists raise a toast to the land of hope and glory

So it was all round to Elizabeth's place last night, to sit in the sun, drink champagne and worry about David Beckham's foot. The Windsors mixed freely with thousands who gathered in the gardens of Buckingham Palace for the first of two Jubilee concerts, and would later greet the crowds on The Mall.

As Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang "Summertime", lucky concert ticket winners tucked into their free Waitrose picnics. It was easy to forget for a moment that England would be up against Sweden in the World Cup today. Now, more than ever, the national mood depended on how the team fared.

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales may not have teams in Japan but they still showed signs of being ready for a party. The Kingdom has not turned its back on the Jubilee as some predicted it would, even if the scale of celebration is only a fraction of what it was 25 years ago.

This weekend offers England two chances to celebrate, if all goes well. For me, the sunset party at the Palace was the end of a journey through the heart of the country to find out how England feels about itself.

From the banks of the Mersey to "Beckingham Palace" a multi-cultural nation, including republicans, was preparing to reclaim its flags. My journey began in Liverpool on Thursday morning, when an old man born in Communist China put a 6,000-year-old musical instrument to his lips and played "All You Need Is Love". The Beatles song has a reason for beginning here: it will provide a theme tune to the celebrations on Monday. The Queen will start a television performance by musicians countrywide, passing from city to city with each verse. Zi Lan Liao and his Chinese Youth Orchestra will appear alongside a gospel choir and a Turkish band.

A mile away, in Jubilee Drive, Chris Clinton was hemming the last of 38 flags for a street party. Since Queen Victoria rode past a century ago, the terraced houses have seen many hardships, from bombs to devastating unemployment. But things are looking up. European money has provided for each home to be sandblasted and renovated; a new school opens shortly.

Driving south, I listened to country music with Welsh lyrics being broadcast from across the border. Republican sentiment is stronger in Wales and Scotland than England. In Northern Ireland the raisingof Union Flags has been seen by some as confrontational.

I left the motorway for pastoral England, and found among the villages of Shropshire a good example of the sentimental attachment to livestock that made foot and mouth so hard to bear. Hoo Farm Animal Kingdom was preparing to run a royal steeplechase using sheep and toy jockeys.

"Lots of people said they were going to have street parties but I haven't heard any more about it," said Beverley in the gift shop. "We don't have many streets around here, mind."

The Elephant & Castle pub in Telford was a gloomy place to indulge the English love of the underdog by watching Senegal beat France. Jason McGowan was found hanging from railings outside the pub on the eve of the millennium, six months after his uncle Errol had died in a similar fashion. The family blames racists, but last week an inquest collapsed. The police say "a central piece of the jigsaw" is missing.

At a service station on the M40 I asked Chris, a builder from Bromsgrove, if he would fly one from his aerial at any other time. "You're joking, aren't you?! I wouldn't dare."

Before heading to London I cut along the M25 to visit the home of our second monarch. "The Queen? We love 'er!" said a poster in the window of shop in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. Above Her Majesty was a footballer, whose nearby mansion, "Beckingham Palace", was more carefully hidden than its near-namesake. "The King? We love 'im!"

God save them both, though, if his left foot lets us down.