Andrew Kerr

My parents were both at Westminster Abbey for the Queen’s Coronation.

My father, John Kerr, was one of several hundred young men who were chosen to be Gold Staff Officers for the ceremony. Their main job was to direct the thousands of guests to their seats, as ushers do at weddings, and each carried a blue and gold staff, decorated with the Queens’ crest, as a badge of office. My father had completed his national service a few years before and wore full dress uniform of a Captain in the Scots Guards, complete with sword and bearskin. He was stationed at a side door to the Abbey, near the entrance to the library, and had to stand throughout – no seating had been provided.

My mother attended as a guest, seated high up in the Abbey, between a pillar and the wife of a Ghanian diplomat. She wore her wedding dress, an ostrich feather, and a tiara, and the weather being unseasonably cold and wet passed a chilly (and hungry) few hours with nothing to eat but a few ovaltine tablets. As far as she can remember there were no toilets provided in their part of the Abbey. She could not see anything of the Coronation ceremony itself but had a fine view of the various comings and goings.

They had left their house at 6.00am, in order to be at the Abbey by 7.00 as instructed. The ceremony itself started a 11.15 and lasted until 2.30pm. My parents finally met again sometime well after 3.00, at a buffet meal laid on in the Cloisters, and eventually returned home to meet other family members who had gathered to watch it all on the brand-new television.