I was eight and a half at the time of the Coronation. Like a lot of children, I took an active interest in the Royal family and I had a scrap book full of pictures cut from the newspaper. Nonetheless I wasn’t quite sure what all the fuss was about during the build up to the big day, but we were to have a street party. We lived in a back to back house in a one end street and would have had to rely on the radio commentary, but a family at one end had a television. We all crowded into their house (it was the end house known as a through terrace so they had 2 rooms downstairs). On the 9 inch t.v. screen in fussy grey and white I saw the Archbishop brandish the crown aloft and lower it on to the Queen’s head, whilst my Mum kept saying excitedly ‘look, this is history, this is the coronation of the Queen!’. I was particularly struck by the wonderful choir chorus ‘Vivat! Vivat Regina! Vivat Regina Elizabetta! Vivat! Vivat!! ‘. The intensity of it was quite electric. All the gathered peers put on their coronets and called out ‘God Save the Queen!’. I don’t think I was conscious of it at the time, but Parry’s ‘I was glad’ certainly also made an impression and perhaps later added to my pleasure in singing classical music.
The other ‘hit’ of the day was the Queen of Tonga who, despite the rain, insisted on riding in an open carriage to the coronation. Edmundo Ross sang a well known popular song about it ‘The Queen of Tonga, came to Britain from far away, The Queen of Tonga, came to Britain on coronation (what a celebration) coronation day!’ It was a sort of Latin American calypso song. One of those songs which, when coming to mind, will insist on repeating itself.
As it rained, we had to hold the street party in our local school. Mum had spent ages making me a pale primrose dress with a big sash and beautiful smocking along the front of the bodice. I was very proud of this dress as, in keeping with most working class families after the war years, we were hard up. New clothes were to be looked after carefully and mostly only brought out for ‘best’. We were in one of the classrooms and I decided to sit on a desk top. Oh dear!! When I got up I discovered it was the only desk in the room with the inkwell still in place. A large blue ink stain now covered a significant part of the dress skirt. Poor Mum. I was horrified and had to stand still with the spoiled part of my skirt in a saucer of milk. Alas, all attempts to remove the stain proved futile. Unfortunately I cannot remember what Mum did in the end – perhaps undid the skirt from the bodice (she was a tailoress after all) and cut out the portion with the stain. I do not remember ever enjoying wearing that dress again. I might as well have been the Ancient Mariner with the albatross round his neck.
I recently visited the V&A to see the exhibition of Cecil Beaton’s photographs of the Royal Family where it was also possible to see a clip from the coronation and that did bring back vivid memories of the actual day.
Beryl Dowsett
A television was set up in the Village Hall because hardly anyone had a TV although our neighbours had a curious set with tinted glass – blue at the top (sky) green at the bottom (grass) pink in the middle (?) – it wasn’t hugely satisfactory. We went to the Village Hall. Later there was a Decorated Bicycle and a Fancy Dress competition; I won the fancy dress in a costume my son wore for the Silver Jubilee (it’s all right, I went as a herald). I’ve still got it somewhere – my grandson wore it, rather briefly, for the Golden Jubilee, long enough to have his picture taken anyway! I’m not sure how much I remember about the service and how much I’ve seen in clips since. I don’t think it was raining in Lincolnshire – I’m pretty sure we had games and tea outside. I do remember the red, white and blue cake my mother made with newly de-rationed sugar. I know I had a tiny model of the Coronation coach, all gold with white horses and we were all given a copy of the New Testament which I still have, though the coach, more prized at the time, is long gone.
Judy East
I don’t remember much more than that like many families, we got a television for the occasion – a tiny little screen that we all gathered round, barely able to see anything. However, for my mother, this was almost a fashion statement as she now felt unbelievably smart – fancy her owning a television set! The only other thing I remember was feeling cheated that cameras weren’t allowed to show the anointing – being a very nosey little girl, I resented such ‘secrets’.
Otherwise, my personal memories are a complete blank – filled in much
later by seeing film of the event. But that’s not quite the same as memories of the day itself!
Barbara Alden
First time … last time
Like so many others the coronation was the first time I remember watching TV. Not having the box at home yet, we came up from the south coast to London for the day, and watched the ceremony on a small flickery screen at the house of our telly-rich relations in Purley. I can still hear the hushed solemnity of Richard Dimbleby’s rather pompous commentary. When the procession of carriages had returned to Buckingham Palace in the rain – Queen Salote of Tonga stole the show by refusing to hide under an umbrella – we caught a train and walked up Whitehall and the Mall in a vast but good-natured crowd, reaching the area in front of the Palace just in time to cheer the Queen’s appearances on the balcony at 9 pm. Approaching my 12th birthday, but probably not much more than 4 foot tall, I couldn’t see, so my father hoisted me onto his shoulders for a few minutes, for the very last time.
Handley Stevens
We three children put on our Sunday best and with Father and Mother went on the No 16 bus from Shoot up Hill to Maida Vale where my Grandmother lived in a boarding house. She had a black and white television with a screen size of 9 inches. There were lots of people crowded around that small screen!
Extract from Mother’s diary for the day.
“The Coronation Day of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. So it was announced umpteen times on radio. Music while you wait from 5.30! Everest climbed. All at Granny’s [my Father’s Mother] for whole day. T.V. started at 10.15. Marvellous beyond imagination. Such intimate details. Queen driving out from Palace, talking to Duke, so happy and thrilled and thrilling. Then so awed by solemnity in Abbey – wonderful processions. Had a fine lunch cold chicken, ham, salads, trifles, jellies, fruit salads etc – then more T.V. Raining hard for procession.”
and for 4th June 1953
“All went to see Queen in Belsize Road in afternoon. Better day. Late coming but quite a thrill when she did. Sitting up in high car, easy to see – small yet with an aura about her. Wouldn’t her small presence be felt anywhere? Walked back [home]”
Margaret Willmer
For some reason “The Royal Scrapbook”, started on Monday May 1st 1953 when I was aged 71/2, has survived my peripatetic childhood. Looking at the contents, pasted in with great care, takes me back to an age when a picture of the Queen as a child could be titled “Another charming portrait of Our Dear Queen” and London could be described as “Gay, golden and crowded” without having any sub text.
There too among the newspaper cuttings of endless members of the royal family and of royal regalia, horses, footmen, guardsmen and coaches is a picture of Neville Chamberlain waving the Munich Anglo-German agreement signed by Hitler in September 1938 – why, I wonder?
Sadly my coronation mug, given to every school child, is not around any more, nor is my miniature golden coach and horses which used to sit on the shelf in my bedroom among other treasured objects.
Like many of my generation the first time I watched television was on the Coronation Day. My father’s boss had invited us to lunch for the great occasion and we have jelly and ice cream and sat in front of the tiny set watching the flickering black and white images. I was always very interested in food, a post war diet being boring in the extreme, and also remember Edmund Hillary describing his feeling at scaling the heights of Everest as being like that of “an ant on a meringue”. He had reached the summit on May 29th but the news was held back to be released on the day of the coronation.
Diana Finning
At last the great day, so long anticipated, had arrived. My father, as a High Court Judge (in those days High Court Judges really were VIPs), had been allotted two seats in Westminster Abbey for himself and my mother, and two seats in a stand erected in the Mall to be used by me and my younger sister, Jane. I had come home from Oxford for the occasion the previous day. A very early start was required in order to reach one’s seats before the streets in Westminster and around Buckingham Palace were closed and buses and tubes stopped running. My parents, dressed in their finery, had a special car to drive them in but Jane and I had to go in by tube.
It was a raw, chilly and cloudy morning when we started before 6.00 am, with heavy showers forecast, correctly as it proved, so we had heavy rain clothes over our smart clothes as the stands were open. It was later reported that the previous Christmas Day was a degree warmer than Coronation Day in June! As we got out of the underground we heard an early newspaper vendor shouting “Everest climbed” – Hillary and Tenzing had done it! Everyone thought this was a wonderful present for the Queen on her great day.
The Mall was packed, with people allowed to stand in front of the elevated stands. Once we had taken our seats, it was a long time to wait, but nobody minded. After so many years of war and postwar austerity (all rationing did not finally end until 1954) and the shock of King George’s death the year before, we were all determined to enjoy the day and make the most of this splendid occasion. The slightest incident got a laugh or a cheer.
Eventually the car and carriage procession began, starting with the heads of state or prime ministers of the Commonwealth countries. Everyone got a cheer. Amongst the early arrivals was the colourfully dressed Queen Salote of Tonga, then a British protectorate. Boy, did she play up to the crowd, and did the crowd love her! Somewhat reduced cheers for Malan, prime minister of South Africa and one of the authors of apartheid, but they rang out in full for the popular Bob Menzies, prime minister of Australia, a great Anglophile and supporter of the monarchy. (In 1956 he was almost the only Commonwealth statesman to give full backing to this country over the Suez crisis.) Last to come was Churchill as prime minister of this country, remembered with gratitude for his wartime leadership and cheered to the echo.
Next came the minor royalty (much looking at our programmes to identify some of them), gradually rising in order of seniority, to mounting cheers and excitement. Finally the young Queen, with a Sovereign’s escort, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh. So long awaited, she was greeted with great joy and relief.
With the procession passed, it was time to find a loo and then a hot drink and a bite to eat from one of the stalls behind the stands, to supplement our sandwiches. The weather, which had stayed mostly fine for the procession, broke and we suffered a long and heavy downpour. It was possible for a time to find some partial shelter under the stands, but we got pretty wet all the same and I was very glad of my army mackintosh.
The rain eased and we resumed our seats. Loudspeakers relayed the service to us from Westminster Abbey and all fell quiet to hear it. I think we joined in cheers after the crowning. It was very moving.
The rain stopped and the loudspeaker commentary gave us some warning of when to expect the return of the procession. Could we make the cheers still louder? We certainly did our best. There was just one disappointment. We were eagerly awaiting Churchill as the return procession passed, but he did not appear. The procession back to the Palace got rather out of order, with the carriages of some of the royalty catching up and mixing with those of the senior prime ministers. We later learned that Churchill had thought it would not be proper or appropriate for him to be behind the royalty and perhaps usurp their cheers, so he had directed his driver to leave and take a different route.
It was over. We were too far away to see the appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, so when public transport resumed running we returned home for a family dinner of celebration and a toast to the Queen. Next day it was back to Oxford for the rest of term.
As well as memories, I have one tangible memento of the Coronation. Those in the Abbey were allowed to keep their chairs, which remained a proud family possession, passing to me after my parents’ death. Now recovered but keeping the original embroidered crown.
John Willmer