By Giles Wilson BBC News Online

Last week our diary of a street party recorded how preparations were going in one East London street. How did things turn out? All along we had thought we were a typical street. OK, we may have decided to have a party. We may have decorated our houses. We may even have invented a security plan in case of mass gatecrashers.

But, we had told ourselves, this was just kind of normal, the sort of thing that would be happening all over London and the rest of the country.

As it turned out, it was far from normal. Street after street in every direction remained quiet, ours alone was decorated, bustling and audible.

	Diary of a street party Part 1: Our fears of naffness Part 2: How the web helped us Part 3: Dancing in the street

"Road closed" signs blocked both ends of our road. Everyone had moved their cars out, leaving just a few which - as is fashionable nowadays - had been dumped by their owners.

Small boys ran around the middle of the road kicking footballs, their parents relaxed for once about them playing in the street. "Are you going to play for England?" one of the older women asked a five-year-old. "Yeah. And Arsenal," he replied matter-of-factly.

Neighbours

Outside nearly every house were tables and chairs, householders and their guests chatting about how lucky they had been with the weather.

One Italian family brought out plates of pizza for all. People who, the day before, had been strangers were now chatting like neighbours of old (which some of them were).

As one of my guests remarked on walking into the street: "What is this, the 1950s?"

The winning house - there's no justice

Even avowed republicans were taking part, perhaps seeing the Union flag trimmings as simply the backcloth to a party, like fairy lights at Christmas.

Three judges - one of them fittingly called Queenie - took a clipboard up and down, assessing with due earnestness which house had the best jubilee decorations. (I was robbed.)

The hired DJ seemed at one stage to have a passion for educating the younger generations in the ways of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. Perhaps he thought that as the Queen was enjoying Ozzy, why shouldn't we?

But once darkness fell, so did any remaining inhibitions, and using the gateway drug of Dancing Queen, the DJ managed to get people on to the harder stuff. Steps, for instance. Even former punks were seen dancing.

For two solid hours the street was bopping. While others may have been enjoying the concert from Buckingham Palace, we were revelling in our own little bit of history. As the photographs on our street website will now record, the party of 2002 ranks alongside those of 1977, 1953 and 1935.