By G. F. Pickstone
In 1952 I was teaching in a small secondary modern school in a village between Bradford and Wakefield when, in February, the headmaster called an assembly of the school at very short notice. There he told the staff and pupils that King George VI had died and that his daughter, Elizabeth, would succeed him. I doubt there were many, if any, television sets in houses where the children lived. They were mainly of families whose parents worked on the railway, down the mines, or in a woollen mill in the village. Television was in its infancy and expensive. The King was little more to these pupils than a photo in a newspaper or a voice on the radio at Christmas, but there were several who returned to their lessons with tears rolling down their cheeks.
Sometime later a friend of mine told me that a local coach firm was advertising an excursion to the coronation on 2nd June. The coach would leave our town in the early evening of 1st June and return about 9pm on Coronation Day. He was thinking of going with his sister – was I inclined to join them? So, on the evening of 1st June fitted out with sandwiches, raincoats and umbrellas we boarded the coach to London. The first motorway was not opened until 1959 so we trundled down the A1 to north London, where the coach was parked near a tube station. From there we took a train to Lancaster Gate station on the edge of Hyde Park where we thought the crowds would be less dense and we would have a better view of the procession returning the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to Buckingham Palace. As we came out of Lancaster Gate tube station there were newspaper posters announcing that Everest had been climbed by Edmund Hilary (a New Zealand beekeeper, later knighted) and sherpa Ten Sing on 29th May. I believe the announcement was delayed a day or two so the impact was on Coronation Day.
We walked across Hyde Park to East Carriage Drive and managed to find a place to settle near the roadway along which the royal procession would return from the ceremony. Loudspeakers had been fixed to lamp posts along the route so we could be aware of the events in Westminster Abbey. There was plenty to see from our standpoint opposite Grosvenor House Hotel where several Hollywood stars were said to be staying, including the coming and going of servicemen who were forming a guard of honour along the route. All this time the rain was falling heavily, people were buying newspapers to gain extra shelter from the downpour and behind us in Hyde Park was a battery of the Royal Artillery, firing salvos of blanks at regular intervals. So we watched the hotel opposite, the guards along the route and were deafened by the salvos from the 25-pounders. To make observation easier for me I bought a periscope made of cardboard and two mirrors in order to see the passing parade, but in the rain it too became soggy and not a lot of use.
Eventually the procession left the Abbey and came into view. Leading were troopers from the Household Cavalry, contingents from the Commonwealth, police, RAF, Army and Navy, detachments from Southern Rhodesia, Ceylon, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, and more from the RAF, the Army, cadets from the RMA and Army Corps and regiments, the Royal Navy, the Foot Guards and the Home Guard of the war years – but I didn’t see Captain Mainwaring or Corporal Jones!
Following on were carriages of colonial rulers. In the last one was Queen Salota of Tonga who endeared herself to the spectators by refusing to raise the hood of her carriage even though the rain fell incessantly. Carriages of Prime Ministers followed – last but not least came Sir Winston Churchill. Then we saw the Queen Mother and some royals followed by senior physicians, surgeons and dentists from the services; many high ranking officers, including well known names such as Field Marshalls Auchinlech, Alexander, Ironside and Montgomery. Finally we saw the Queen wearing the Imperial Crown (originally worn by her father) in the State Coach drawn by eight greys, escorted by Life Guards and Horse Guards and more high ranking military men on horse back. After six years of war and much post-war austerity the pageantry and colour were memorable. When the procession had passed, we followed the route it had taken back to the Palace. On Oxford Street most of the shop windows had been boarded up to protect against breakage, the same in Regent Street and then we came to Trafalgar Square and the Mall, which resembled an ocean of papier maché as discarded and soggy newspapers had been trampled underfoot. But why broken umbrellas and a solitary shoe? Was someone hopping back home to rest after a day which would be difficult to forget?
P.S. No wonder I did not see Captain Mainwaring or Corporal Jones or anyone else from Warmington-on-Sea as “Dad’s Army” first appeared on television in 1968!