Coronation of a Queen

6 June 2022

Royalty first came into my life during 1953, when I was a small boy at Cobden School in Loughborough.

Much was being made of the fact that the nation was to have a new queen, named Elizabeth II.  Every member of our class was presented with a glass tumbler, furnished with a portrait of the new queen, complete with the royal Coat of Arms.  Much less exciting, was the associated English Lesson, when we were instructed to write copiously about the illustrious event!

At the time of the coronation, my family, having no television, were invited into the home of my father’s friends for the entire day.  I was pleased to discover that these friends had a son called Paul, and that he was about the same age as me.

Paul and I quickly decided that the garden had much more to offer than the solemn activities in Westminster Abbey, and as a result we managed to avoid most of the ceremony.  Our parents called us inside to see the actual crowning as this was ‘very serious and important.’

My dad made the occasion much more memorable by exclaiming as the crown hovered over the recipient’s head, “Drop it!”

Today on the occasion of her Platinum Jubilee, I am very glad that we have our Queen Elizabeth.  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Commonwealth could not be the same without her.

God Save the Queen.

David Taylor