In 1953, London was still recovering from World War II. The city was pockmarked with bomb damage, food supplies were tight and life was dull for children who had never eaten anything so exotic as a banana. But the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II helped lift the gloom. Central London buzzed with activity as workers built temporary stands along the 5-mile route of the queen’s procession.
Giant crowns were suspended from arches that soared over The Mall approaching Buckingham Palace, and shopkeepers filled their windows with colourful banners and coronation-themed products. With Elizabeth’s son, King Charles III, set to be crowned on May 6, people are recalling his mother’s coronation 70 years ago, which was the last time the British public witnessed the ritual.
“The whole of London was sort of a cauldron of people rushing to the area to look at what was happening,” said James Wilkinson, then an 11-year-old member of the Westminster Abbey choir, which sang during the ceremony.
A FRONT-ROW SEAT
Wilkinson’s memories of those events begin more than a year before the coronation.The choristers, all of whom attended a special boarding school for choir members, were in a Latin lesson when the abbey’s great tenor bell began to toll every minute, and the Union flag was lowered to half staff. “The headmaster came in and told us that the king had died,’’ Wilkinson said. “And, of course, what excited us then was the fact that there would be new coins and stamps with the queen’s head on them, because we all collected stamps.” The initial buzz was followed by the realization that there would be a coronation.
