Crowning Glory
This week Britain celebrates the golden anniversary of their close bond with their much loved Queen. On 2nd June 1953, she was crowned Queen Elizabeth II by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey.
50 years on the Queen returned to Westminster Abbey to mark the day with a televised service of thanksgiving. Against considerable Palace and political opposition the new Queen had insisted that her coronation should be seen live on television, a most controversial issue at the time. It was the first time that TV cameras had been allowed into the Abbey and the event ushered in the new Age of Television for the British public. Those of us old enough to remember those flickering black and white images on our small screens then had a lump in our throats and tear in our eye on Monday as we watched Her Majesty give thanks for her long and eventful reign and renew her vows of service and dedication.
It is difficult to imagine today what an impact the glittering display of coronation pomp and pageantry had upon a sombre postwar Britain. 16 months previously, on a cold and damp February day, we had lined the funeral route of her father King George VI in sorrowful mourning. At his daughter's coronation Britain erupted in joyful celebration and the thousands who lined our newly crowned Queen's the circuitous five mile coronation route through London from the Abbey to Buckingham Palace went wild with delight.
Before leaving the Abbey for her triumphal procession in her golden coach through the streets of London, the Queen had exchanged the exceedingly heavy St. Edward's Crown for the lighter glistening jewel-encrusted Imperial State Crown made for Queen Victoria. Her magnificent coronation procession was composed of some 16,000 Commonwealth troops and heads of state. A particularly warm cheer went up, I remember, for the detachment of Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the 'Mounties', in their scarlet tunics and for the immensely popular Queen Salote of the Pacific Island kingdom of Tonga who ignored the heavy rain to ride in an open carriage.
We were not to see such joyful pageantry or such crowds again until last year's Jubilee celebrations.
After the Abbey thanksgiving service the Queen opened the Golden Jubilee Mall Extension to the Jubilee Walkway in London's St. James's Park, which now extends for some 14 miles around London. She then gave a picnic tea party for over 500 underprivileged children in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
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