Reminiscences of the Queen’s Coronation in 1953
Taken from ‘You’ve Never Had It So Good!‘ by Stephen F. Kelly
Joan Matthews
And then of course there was the Coronation the next year. I went up to London with three of my college friends and we sat out in the road and watched. It was the first time that I had left Josephine in the charge of her father. I was convinced I was going to come home and find her ill. We sat in St James’ Street to watch it, which is fairly close to the Palace.We chose it particularly because it is narrow and we thought we’d get a good view, but it poured and poured with rain. In the morning, when people and carriages started making their way to the Abbey – the whole place was police lined of course – it was such a dull miserable day that anything that walked down the road got cheered. The men sweeping the road got cheered and a dog wandering down the road also got cheered. And one or two men who must have been lords or something, they got cheered and looked very embarrassed. It was quite funny really.
It was pouring with rain and the poor old Sultan of Zanzibar was sitting in the same carriage as the Queen ofTonga and he was looking so miserable and there was this huge, great lady next to him gracefully waving in the pouring rain. After Elizabeth had been crowned we went to Buckingham Palace and watched it all. I’m not a royalist but it was a spectacle.
Stephen Kelly
I do have some stronger memories of the Coronation. We didn’t have a television, in fact we didn’t have one until about 1960, but my granny bought one for the Coronation, or rented, I don’t know which. She lived at home with three of her grown-up children, none of whom were married, but a couple of them were working, so they had a little bit of spare money. Anyhow, it was a whole-day event. We arrived early enough to see the future Queen emerge from Buckingham Palace in her carriage to make her way to Westminster Abbey. I have a suspicion it was raining as well. We stayed at granny’s all day. Neighbours and friends were piled into the house and would come and go. I vividly remember that we had lunch, sandwiches and cakes in front of the telly, and then more tea in the afternoon and more cakes later on. And so it went on, all day with granny and my aunts popping into the kitchen all the time to make more pots of tea and produce more sandwiches. But what everybody was talking about was the Queen of Tonga. She was a rather stout lady if I remember, who smiled and laughed throughout the proceedings despite the pouring rain. She made a rather cutting contrast to our own sour-faced royal family. We also got a commemorative Coronation mug. I think we were given it at school and I think my mum bought a book with the order of the Coronation service in it.
Mary James
I remember the Coronation well. At church we had a pageant and I was Queen Elizabeth II! My mother made all the clothes and was very involved. And we had a street party. We were one of the few, maybe the only people in the area to have a television. My father was always interested in new things. We were the first in the area to have a washing machine as well. David, my brother, was a great supporter of the missionaries and he got out his missionary box and made people who came to our house pay to watch the Coronation, and he made some money for the missionaries. Then we all got dressed up and had a street party. I was a Welsh woman, all dressed up, and one of my brothers was a herald. Everyone was dressed up.
Trevor Creaser
In 1952, the year the King died, I was in Leeds parish church choir and I was picked out of thirty choirboys to go to Westminster Abbey, along with another lad, to sing at the Coronation. I was his understudy in case he got ill. Anyhow, he didn’t get ill or anything but I still sang in Westminster Abbey. I sang at the practices but not actually at the Coronation itself. During the Coronation ceremony I was in the choir vestry at the back in case anything happened, listening to everything that was going on. It was very exciting being at the Coronation. I stood there, in the background; I saw the Queen and everything.
Chris Prior
On Coronation day, the whole family went to my aunts, my mother’s sister. She was the only member of the family who had a television. They had a tiny house with a tiny television set. I don’t really remember watching it though. What I do remember is that we had cold lamb with mint sauce. The cat got so agitated by all the people there that it ran up the chimney then fell down and there was soot everywhere. The Coronation to me is cold lamb and mint sauce and the smell of soot.
