The Queen's Coronation

I don’t remember much about the Royal Family until the Coronation, which was the first time I knew about the ‘news’ but didn’t take much notice of it anyway. The arrangements for the street party must have been going on for some time before I knew anything about it. It was when my mother told me I was going into a fancy dress party as Britannia!! Mam made my helmet & dress and Dad made the twirly bits for my helmet and made my shield. My helmet was silver, shield had to be red, white & blue on silver background and my dress was white. I remember that there was much spray painting as you couldn’t get silver paint as such. My helmet took a lot of fitting as well because Mam only had a ladies’ head block and when the felt was sprayed silver it became very stiff. My brother went as a baby, just a white towel round his nether region, a sun hat and a bottle filled with cold tea hanging round his neck!!! I don’t remember my sister going but then she probably dressed up as a lady so that she didn’t look silly. Everyone contributed to the meal which was eaten by the children from tables laid out in the middle of the road down by our house. The parade from what I can remember took place in the first half of the road before the tea, my brother won a prize – I think it was first but would not say for definite. He probably won for his cheek as he was a real performer and played up to most things!! After the tea and ‘us kids’ had gone to bed then the elders had their ‘party’, I was asleep but the noise of the laughter and singing woke me a couple of times but not enough for me to get out of bed. And that was the Coronation for me! Not much different to any other day!!!