Dorothy Hill
I was born in 1941 so in the year of the Coronation (1953) I was 12 years old. I remember having a new bike that year and my parents bought a television especially for the Coronation. It was a huge brown bakelite box with an eight-inch screen, but we thought it was wonderful! I used to rush in at 7 o’clock in the evening to see the news come on because in those days broadcasting was limited. In between the programmes there was no continuity from one to another, instead we had intervals where they would play music and we would view what they called ‘interludes’. My favourite was the potters wheel, even today I remember the tune to it!
The fifties; rationing was coming almost to an end – sliced bread with lovely shiny crusts, tizer drinks and lemonade powder which made your finger bright yellow.
On a sombre note, I remember the disaster of Lynmouth, a village in Devon, which disappeared one night in the floods from Dartmoor, and, on television, news stories of the Mau atrocities in Kenya and, whilst in 1953, the year of the Coronation, the major floods in Canvey Island, Essex. Last but not least, the daily news about the murder trails of Christie the multiple murderer. I believe I was sent out to play because I do not remember any of the gory details a 12-year-old would otherwise remember.
Firstly, I remember the death of King George IV in 1952. We lived in Burnham, Bucks, at the time (but I went to school in Slough) in a village called Chalvey. The railway line to Windsor went across the bridge which went over the High Street and our class was taken there to view the funeral carriage on its way to Windsor. We were considered to young to go to view the funeral but if I remember my brother took a day off school to go.
On the day of the Coronation, I remember still thinking I was going to watch the television all day with the family. Imagine my surprise when I came downstairs in the morning to find most of the street in our front room! And my mum telling me to hand around sandwiches to all the neighbours! So, after seeing the anointing and then the crowning I was off out to play with my friends.
