Jubilee Britain: Flags, street celebrations and a brisk trade in Prince Philip candle snuffers

A fleeting encounter with Princess Margaret seems to have been Knutsford's most memorable royal experience of the past half-century but that's evidently done nothing to quench the affluent old Cheshire market town's thirst for the golden jubilee.

As vast Union flags went up in the window at the Wares haberdashery yesterday, an organising committee was gathering in the drizzle on a dank Knutsford Heath – the site of an infamous confrontation between Martin Bell and his political adversaries Christine and Neil Hamilton five years ago, and the place where 50 bears will go head-to head in a best-dressed royal teddy competition on Monday.

Nowhere was the sense of anticipation more pronounced than in the 150-year-old terraced houses on Windsor Way, which defied many a preconception about the jubilee – including one about thirtysomething management consultants not being interested in it. Robert Gleaves, 33, who has set up the latest of Knutsford's many small consultancies from a back room, needed little encouragement to brandish his invitation to Saturday's classical concert and garden party at Buckingham Palace.

He had gone to inordinate lengths to get it. Figuring that Knutsford's quota of the 6,000 tickets would have gone, he decided to make online applications in the names of his parents, grandmother and various cousins, who live elsewhere. He came up trumps with his grandmother's application, so she, 85-year-old Betty Bradford, will be heading to the palace with him.

"Grandmother's become a minor media celebrity in Wolverhampton because of this," said Mr Gleaves. "We've taken to calling her Lilibet."

By Monday, Mr Gleaves will be in the mood to decamp with the rest of the terrace to the jubilee fair around the corner in King Street. This is an extension of the annual fair which the Manchester commuter belt town has been staging on the first week in June for the past 13 years, in appreciation of the royal charter that first allowed it to trade.

After the fair, it will be off to the heath, at the bottom of Windsor Way, for a picnic, where residents will be indulging in something of a golden jubilee tradition: creating patterns out of coloured sand. The craft commemorates King Canute throwing sand from his shoes as he forded a local river (the legend that gave "Canute's-ford" its name). It was shown to Edward, Prince of Wales, when he visited for Queen Victoria's golden jubilee in the 1880s.

Even leafy Cheshire has suffered hardship since the silver jubilee of 1977, when suburban estates threw jubilee parties. "These days work dictates that people are away more. They're involved in their own lives and don't have time," said Margaret Wild, 61, on Windsor Way. "The jubilee will be a way of giving people a nudge to be sociable."

Val Boston-Davies could simply do with a bank holiday rest. She runs the Wares haberdashery and has been haring up to her wholesalers to plug a crushing late demand for her jubilee bunting, flags and hats. The £5.95 Union flags (made in China) are competing with Prince Philip candle snuffers and David Beckham gingerbread men as the World Cup and jubilee collectively bring King Street's shop windows out in a sudden rash of patriotism.

Meanwhile, Vernon Wragg's furniture shop near Windsor Way parades winning entries from the Knutsford schools golden jubilee painting competition. With true Knutsford loyalty, they depict the Queen in happier, less challenging times, wearing loud shades of orange, green and blue, walking corgis and horses and always smiling.