Peter Hearn

My memories of Elizabeth’s Coronation are in black and white, and in silence. Few families had a television set in the early 50s and, if they did, it was in grainy black and white. So, I and a bunch of friends watched the Coronation of our Queen through a shop window in Hull, and without a commentary – denied to us by the thickness of plate glass! I remember that royalty seemed to smile a lot…

I remember the death of King George more clearly. I was a student at Hull University and we were queuing for lunch in the refectory, and that was just the noisiest place and the noisiest time, and there we were all gassing away at the tops of our voices when this message came over the tannoy announcing the death of King George. Silence. It lasted for at least a minute, then whispering began. No loud talking, just whispering. It lasted right through lunch; people just whispering to each other across the tables. It was very spontaneous. It was something very respectful.

We knew little about the King. We had been too young, during the War, to have appreciated his presence amongst the people. My earliest awareness of him had been at his own Coronation when at the village fete, I received a rather tubby Coronation filled with boiled sweets – some solace for having dropped my egg during the egg-and-spoon rave. I was all of four.