Bunting strung between the houses, balloons on every lamppost and the street filled with tables, themselves laden with jellies, trifles and cakes an entire community was brought together for one giant party, the Silver Jubilee.

And it was an event which has lived long in Anita Atkinson's memory.

"It was a great day. We had jelly and ice cream, and everyone really enjoyed themselves," she says. "I was 20 then, and me and a friend organised our street party, and organised sack races and stuff like that, and raised money to give the kids memorabilia."

That street party was repeated up and down the country repeated an estimated 12,000 times in fact as the nation turned out to mark the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

But, 25 years on, it looks as though the Golden Jubilee could be a different story. Instead of trestle tables, this time the only thing filling the streets could be tumbleweed.

There may be three and a half months to go before the official celebrations, but it seems there is some anxiety that the Golden Jubilee has not exactly caught the public's imagination.

In public, the official approach is still bullish. Lord Sterling, chairman of the parliamentary committee in charge of co-ordinating public events over the first weekend in June, dismissed fears that it could be a flop, and claimed there was 'immense' interest.

But for Anita Atkinson, in the Guinness Book of Records for having the largest collection of Royal memorabilia, the omens are less promising.

Anita, who now lives at Harperley, near Crook, says she is planning to stage her own party, but efforts to organise a community event have been met with widespread apathy. "I don't know whether it is because of what has happened with the Royal Family over the last decade, but there was almost total opposition," she says.

One of the reasons for the lack of interest could be that the celebrations are facing competition for our attention this summer, according to Dr Leslie Gofton, sociology lecturer at Newcastle University.

"There is the World Cup, where England will be involved, and the Test matches, so it will be very crowded," he says. "But, obviously we are more sensitive to issues surrounding the monarchy now. A lot of things have happened that have been very damaging to the image of the monarchy, right down to Prince Harry recently."

Revelations over the private life of the Royal Family, from adulterous affairs to late-night drinking, have touched most of its leading players, with perhaps just the Queen and Queen Mother unscathed.

"If they were a pop group or a corporate body, they would have been very badly damaged.

"There is a reservoir of inertia related to tradition and the monarchy, and it is very much tied together with the idea of what it is to be British.

"They're already downplaying the jubilee, although I suspect that, whatever happens, it will be regarded as an affirmation of the affection in which the Queen is held. The Silver Jubilee didn't seem to have

generated much enthusiasm at this stage, but I'm inclined to think that the Golden celebrations won't capture the imagination."