London was still recovering from World War II in 1953. The city was scarred by bomb damage, food was scarce. And life was monotonous for children who had never eaten something as unusual as a banana. The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, however, helped to lighten the melancholy. Workers were busy erecting temporary stands along the 5-mile route of the queen’s procession in central London. Giant crowns hung from arches that rose above The Mall towards Buckingham Palace. While retailers adorned their windows with colourful banners and coronation-themed merchandise.
With Elizabeth’s son, King Charles III, poised to be crowned on May 6. People are remembering his mother Queen Elizabeth’s coronation 70 years ago, when the British public last watched the process.
“The whole of London was sort of a cauldron of people rushing to the area to look at what was happening,” said James Wilkinson. An 11-year-old member of the Westminster Abbey choir, which sang during the event.
Wilkinson’s recollections of such incidents date back more than a year before the coronation.
When the abbey’s great tenor bell began to toll every minute, and the Union flag was lowered to half staff, the choristers, who all attended a special boarding school for choir members, were in the middle of a Latin lesson. “The headmaster came in and told us that the king had died,” Wilkinson recalled. “Of course, what excited us back then was the prospect of new coins and stamps bearing the queen’s head, because we all collected stamps.”
The initial excitement was followed by the realisation that a coronation would take place.
The choristers had been practising the music and lyrics to the songs they would sing during the three-hour ritual for months. To prepare, the abbey was shuttered.