Remember the Coronation?

We went to my grandparents for the day because they had a television. We had taken our new kitten with us because he was too small to leave on his own. He managed to wriggle inside their sofa and we spent most of the day getting him out out again!

I wasn’t born.

I spent most of that day under the dining table as our’s was the only house with a TV. There were so many neighbours in watching it that I presumably felt safer there.

No, I wasn’t born. She was crowned on 2 June and I was still a bump in my mother’s tum. My older brothers remember it being on the radio as hardly anyone had TVs. They had a street party and everyone was given a coronation mug. I actually have a metal model of the coronation coach, complete with footmen and horses. My parents bought it for the unborn me as I was their coronation year baby ?

I was 3 years old. We had a 10” Murphy TV that only Dad was allowed to touch. Had to have black out curtains at the windows in the lounge. All the neighbours came in to watch as we were only ones with telly.

I was born July 1952. All my siblings were at school and were given a Coronation mug.

I was so jealous of those mugs when I was older!

I was born in April 1953. My grandparents had a television so my parents watched the Coronation at their house. Apparently my grandmother made up a bed for me in a drawer.

Oh, and I was given a mug which I still have.

I wasn’t born either but it’s memorable to me as my parents met as teenagers at the street party.

We all piled in on an older neighbour who had a TV. Tiny screen with a green filter on the front. My mum declared she had a headache from watching the TV so she spent much of her time making tea and sandwiches.
Later we children went to a big tea party in the grounds of the biggest house in the street, the home of the pharmacist. We were given an anointing spoon( replica), and I had another one given me at school. Also a mug, but I am not sure who gave us that.

It was before my time but we have a family story anyway. Someone in the family bought a tv but my sister was diagnosed with Scarlet Fever on coronation day so my parents were driving against the flow of traffic, taking her to an isolation hospital. She had to stay there for six weeks and all her possessions were burnt when she was discharged.

I was 13, and we went next door to watch it; we didn’t have television ourselves until a few years later. I remember the occasion quite well. I know I was wearing a green needlecord dress. It wasn’t a warm day, and it rained a bit.

When during the ceremony some sacred objects were carried on a sort of salver or tray, the man next door said irreverently “Here come the ice creams”. I thought that was hilarious. I think later there was a colour film, which I saw with a school party.

I still have my miniature Coronation coach, complete with eight little horses, but for some reason it has turned silvery over the years and is no longer the gold coach it was originally.

I still have my coronation coin , they were given to babies born in 1953.

We bought a TV and the neighbours brought their chairs and all squeezed into our sitting room.

We were all give a tiny model gold coach and white horses (mine broke not that long ago) and a silver-plated Coronation teaspoon which we use every day.

Oh yes, I have a mug somewhere too, probably packed away in the attic.

We, and lots of other folk, went to my Auntie Clara`s to watch it, as she and Uncle John were the only ones locally with a TV, a tiny 10" screen one, but a TV nonetheless. It was a dull, rainy day, but we thought that the TV was magical. I remember being a bit peeved because the coronation was on June 2nd and not on the 1st, my 10th birthday. We were given a coronation mug, plus a small picture that changed from the Queen to Prince Philip when you moved it around. My husband came from a different part of the country, he got a silver spoon, I still have it in it`s original box upstairs. My coach and horses are long gone.

We were living in Hong Kong. The film of the coronation did not reach us until 3 months after the event.

We had only been in Hong Kong for a few months and everything was new to me. Every community had built triumphal arche made from bamboo and woven matting over the main road and decorated it with paper flowers and pictures of the queen.

On the day there was a huge procession of decorated floats and a long dancing Chinese dragon. On eof the army bases was had a boundary along the main road in Hong Kong ad my father was able to get seats there so that we had a front row view of the procession. It was fabulous.

We had a street party and my Mum made a dress and dressed me as Princess Anne and my neighbours son was dressed as Prince Charles, long trestle tables filled with food and the singing went on into the night.

I was born in the early part of Coronation year. I have the commemorative coin and a teaspoon, still in its box, this was always looked on as an important item, on display in the china cabinet.

At primary school, one lucky girl had actually been born on Coronation Day. She had been presented with mugs and teaspoons by the local council.

I was always very envious of her, as to me, she was somehow almost ‘royal’.

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Remember it very well. Our house was the one in the street with thr 12 inch tv, so all neighbours in there. My communist odler brother slammed out of the house saying loudly ' Well, her son will never be crowned'. Now wish I had somewhere along the years taken a bet on that!!!

Fortunately, our areas street party was the following weekend, so we missed the rain. I was selected to give the bouquet to the Lady Mayor at this (I was the first of the overflow Estates youngsters to get to grammar school).
Essex school children were all given a book 'Royalty in Essex' and a Mug.

I was at Primary School and a big Coronation party had been arranged in the village hall. There were some lovely pictures of our new Queen on the walls and Union Jack bunting crisscrossed the ceiling. It was the sight of the trestle tables that grabbed our attention. Platefuls of sandwiches and cakes next to bowls of brightly coloured jelly. As sweet rationing was still on, it was a sight for sore eyes. Every child was given a Coronation Mug to take home. Such happy memories.

My dad refused to have a TV in the house as he was convinced I wouldn’t do my homework. I left school at 16 and started work he bought a second hand TV which only had BBC.
ITV was forbidden because of the adverts. How times have changed!

I know I have posted this before but the highlight of my day was it raining all day and being kissed in a shop doorway by my friend’s brother Tom.
I was 15 and I think he was about 18, it was so thrilling but also very innocent.

I was 12. We had the only TV in our street, though my uncle and aunt, just up the road also had one, so some of the neighbour,s plus granny, aunt and uncle, came round to watch the coronation on that little screen - smaller than a modern i-pad! After it was over, I jumped on my bike and raced down to the local football stadium where my uncle (the town's Provost) had organised a pageant in which I was, firstly, an ancient Briton and, later, a lady at the court of Mary, Queen of Scots. I don't remember what the rest of the family were doing, but I was having a great time!