On the evening before the Queen’s coronation in 1953, one of her ladies in waiting says, ‘You must be feeling nervous, ma’am.’ ‘Of course I am,’ replies the Queen, ‘but I really do think Aureole will win.’
Aureole is her horse that is running in the Derby this coming weekend.
Does she really mean it, or is she only joking? Like so many of her remarks, it is probably a bit of both.
An estimated 150 continental prostitutes will be arriving in the West End in readiness for the Coronation. This is only to be expected: these grand theatrical events affect people in different ways.
Liverpool Public Libraries announce the winner in the under-11 age group for an essay in celebration of the coming event.
This winning essay is by Paul McCartney, age ten years, ten months.
It begins: ‘On the Coronation Day of William the Conqueror, senseless Saxon folk gathered round Westminster Abbey to cheer their Norman king as he walked down the aisle.
‘The Normans, thinking this was an insult, turned upon the Saxons killing nearly all of them. But on the Coronation of our lovely young queen, Queen Elizabeth II, no rioting nor killing will take place because present day royalty rule with affection rather than force.’ Young Paul is presented with his prize by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. ‘It was my first ever experience of nerves,’ he will later recall. ‘I was shaking like a jelly.’
The Queen Mother, Prince Charles and Princess Margaret watch the Queen being crowned
The Queen’s Coronation in 1953… she claimed to be more nervous about how her horse Aureole would get on in the Derby the following weekend
The Queen’s 1953 Coronation was the first to be televised and the event was captured in the ITV documentary A Queen Is Crowned, where the film was restored to full colour
During the final rehearsal in Westminster Abbey the young pages are given ceremonial swords. The temptation proves too much for 13-year-old Andrew Parker Bowles, later to be the former husband of Queen Camilla.
‘Everyone drew their swords and started jousting away,’ he remembers. ‘We were cuffed around the ears. Nowadays that would be called assault or something.’
Watching this rehearsal, BBC commentator Richard Dimbleby thinks the Archbishop of Canterbury is placing the crown on the Queen’s head rather too speedily. He thinks he should spend more time on it, milking the moment for all it is worth.
Once the rehearsal is over, he approaches the Archbishop and suggests he might raise the crown in the air and count ‘two, three’ before lowering it on to the head of the Queen.
From 4am on Coronation Day, Tuesday, June 2, more than 20,000 police line the route.
The night is marked by unseasonably chilly winds. People with tickets to the service have been asked to take their places between 6am and 8am, so they know to expect a long wait: the Queen is not scheduled to enter the Abbey until 11.15am.
With the addition of tiered seating, the capacity of Westminster Abbey has been raised from 2,000 to 8,000. The extra seats have been specially tested by members of the armed services. For safety’s sake, they spent two hours sitting up and down on them.
Richard Dimbleby enters the Abbey at 5.30am. He takes his seat in his soundproofed commentary box, immediately behind the high altar, ready to broadcast to 20 million viewers, or over half the adult population of Britain.
He has his commentary typed out and pasted inside a book, episode by episode, complete with reminders to himself in the margins: Talk slowly. Start smartly. Wait on actions.
The BBC has announced that it will start broadcasting the test card an hour and a quarter before the programme itself begins, allowing viewers time to warm up their sets and adjust their aerials.
Across the country, street parties begin as early as 9.30am. Rationing is still in force, but the Prime Minister has decreed that every household be permitted an extra pound of sugar.
Caterers have been allowed additional fat and sugar for crisps, cakes and toffee apples. The Queen has declared an amnesty for wartime deserters, some of whom have been on the run for years.
Society artist and photographer Cecil Beaton sets off for the Abbey amid heavy sheets of rain, having filled his top hat with sandwiches, Indian ink and bits and pieces for the sketches he will make.
Beaton takes up his place in the rafters, close to the pipes of the great organ. To observe the passing scene, he will have to peer precipitously over the balcony.
On the other hand, it is an excellent vantage point: he can see everyone walking down the nave, as well as most of the activity in front of the high altar.
Nor does he miss ‘all the Peeresses’ bald spots, and their surreptitious nipping out of a flask, or arranging of a train’ and ‘that great old relic, Winston Churchill’ as he ‘lurches forward on unsteady feet, a fluttering mass of white ribbons at his shoulder and white feathers on the hat in his hand’.
At 11am the Queen’s golden coach arrives. Her pages step forward to open the doors, and she emerges in her dress of ivory silk.
Her maids of honour gather up the silk handles of the train. They make their way through the Great West Door. The Queen appears not at all nervous, notes Lady Ann Coke, one of the six in attendance, but ‘as calm as she always is’.
At 11.15am she turns to her maids of honour, says, ‘Ready, girls?’ and sets forth.
The four-year-old Prince Charles, dressed all in white, is sitting between his grandmother, the Queen Mother, and his aunt, Princess Margaret.
He is irritated that the Palace barber has cut his hair too short and plastered his scalp with what he later remembers as ‘the most appalling gunge’. The Archbishop picks up the Crown of St Edward, which contains 440 precious and semi-precious stones.
Just for today, a small gold star has been added to the front so that the Archbishop will know which way round to place it on the Queen’s head. It is a foot high, and weighs four and a half pounds.
As the Archbishop lowers it on to her head, those entitled to coronets put them on, and the congregation bellows, ‘God Save the Queen!’
Perhaps for the first time, but certainly not the last, a television commentator has shaped the event he is there to report.
Looking down on the ceremony, Richard Dimbleby notes with pleasure that his advice has been taken: immediately before the crowning, the Archbishop raises the crown above the Queen’s head, counts ‘one, two, three’ to himself, then gradually lowers it upon her head.
In America, viewers when TV networks interrupt the ceremony to screen adverts from sponsors.
The New York Times condemns NBC’s interruption of its coverage to show a chimpanzee. It was, says its editorial, ‘utterly disgraceful. No apology can be adequate.’
At 1.40pm, the Queen steps down from the Coronation Chair and the choir sings William
Walton’s Te Deum. The composer is among the congregation; he has tucked a supply of whisky miniatures into his top hat to keep himself going.
In New York, the young Queen’s favourite author, P.G. Wodehouse, watches the Coronation on television at his apartment on Park Avenue. He regards the whole event as overlong and lacking any proper theatricality.
‘It needed work and should have been fixed up in New Haven [where Broadway plays were tried out],’ he complains to his friend and collaborator Guy Bolton, suggesting it would have benefited from a cut of half an hour, with dancing girls to replace the Archbishop’s the Gospel readings.
After the ceremony, there is a gathering in the Great Hall of Westminster. Princess Margaret approaches Peter Townsend. ‘She looked superb, sparkling, ravishing,’ he recalls. As they chat, she brushes a bit of fluff from his RAF uniform.
The two of them laugh, and think no more about it. But the gesture does not pass unnoticed by the assembled newsmen, who correctly interpret it as a sign of intimacy.
In Soho Street, Glasgow, every lamppost, doorway and windowsill is decorated with bunting and streamers and trestle tables are laden with food and drink. The celebrations carry on way beyond the bedtime of four-year-old Marie Laurie, but she peeks at the scene from her bedroom window, her chin resting on her hands.
In the twilight, people sing and dance. Marie’s father, ‘more than a little drunk’, spies her at the window. ‘Gi’ us a song, Marie, hen!’ he calls out.
Little Marie sings the hit song ‘In a Golden Coach’. Decades later, Marie Laurie, now known as Lulu, recalls this as her very first public performance.
Preparing to shoot an epilogue for the BBC some hours after the ceremony, Richard Dimbleby surveys the empty Abbey benches and notes ‘the melancholy sight of the litter left behind by the peers.
‘Tiers and tiers of stalls on which the peers had been sitting were covered with sandwich wrappings, sandwiches, morning newspapers, fruit peel, sweets and even empty miniature bottles.’
But his final, sonorous sentences overlook these unappealing elements: ‘And so this day of days, most memorable, comes to an end, and with it begins a new era, the new Elizabethan age, an age in which the love and faith and hope of all the Commonwealth rest on the slim shoulders of the beautiful queen who has just been crowned. Long may she reign!’
After the ceremony, Cecil Beaton rushes home, swallows ‘a fistful of aspirins’, changes clothes, sleeps for an hour, awakes refreshed and beetles off to Buckingham Palace, where he is booked to take the official photographs in the Green Drawing Room.
First he photographs family groups: ‘The Queen Mother, dimpled and chuckling, with eyes as bright as any of her jewels’ – and Margaret, ‘with pink and white make-up and a sexy twinkle of understanding’.
As he photographs the various members of the Royal Family in informal poses, making all the right noises – ‘Charming!’ ‘Divine!’ – Prince Philip is seen to bristle.
The Queen, ‘cool, smiling, sovereign of the situation’, arrives with her maids of honour. He thinks she looks ‘extremely minute’ under her robes; on this unseasonably cold day, her nose and hands are chilled, her eyes tired.
‘Yes, the crown does get rather heavy,’ she tells him. It has been on her head for nearly three hours.
Prince Philip stands at the side cracking jokes, with a pursed smile. It makes Beaton feel uneasy. ‘I believe he doesn’t like or approve of me. This is a pity because, though I’m not one for ‘Navy type’ jokes and obviously have nothing in common with him, I admire him enormously.’
Lady Coke is conscious of Philip becoming ‘frightfully bossy . . . telling us where to stand and when to smile’. As a result of this interference, Beaton grows tetchy. He puts down his camera and snaps, ‘Sir, if you would like to take the photographs, please do!’ and walks away.
The Queen looks on in horror, and so does the Queen Mother. Realising he has gone too far, the Duke moves away.
Once it is all over, the Queen leads her family and entourage out on to the Palace balcony. The noise from the cheers of the crowd is so loud that Lady Coke can feel it physically hitting her.
Weeks later, in the huge hall of the British Army School in Kuala Lumpur, the seven-year-old Joanna Lumley sports a Coronation medal as she watches the movie The Coronation in full colour. She inks her name on the back of her wooden pencil box.
The box carries a stencil of the new Queen, looking back over her shoulder with a friendly smile.
‘I knew then, as I know now, that she would never let me down,’ reflects Joanna, nearly 70 years on.
Donald Trump? He was ‘very rude’
Over the course of her reign, Her Majesty entertained many controversial leaders, including Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Donald Trump, Emperor Hirohito and Vladimir Putin. She may not have found their company convivial, and may even have voiced a word of disapproval.
A few weeks after President Trump’s visit, she confided in a lunch guest that she found him ‘very rude’, particularly disliking the way he couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting.
She also believed Trump ‘must have an arrangement’ with wife Melania – why else would she remain married to him?
Trump was confident he’d been her favourite guest ever. ‘There are those that say they’ve never seen the Queen have a better time,’ he told Fox News.
After President Trump’s visit The Queen confided in one guest that she found him ‘very rude’
Her Majesty disliked the way the then president looked over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting
Queen’s touching tribute to Anne Frank at Belsen
Anne Frank was born in 1929. She was a year older than Princess Margaret and three years younger than Princess Elizabeth, who was the same age as Anne’s sister, Margot.
For her 13th birthday, on June 12, 1942, Anne’s father, Otto Frank, gave her a red and white chequered autograph book, which she used as a diary.
She was ambitious: she wrote in her diary that she dreamt of becoming a journalist, ‘and later on a famous writer’.
Anne Frank wrote about the then Princess Elizabeth of York in her historic diary
A month after Anne began writing her diary, on July 6, 1942, the Frank family – Anne and Margot, together with their mother and father – went into hiding from the Nazis. For the next two years and 30 days, they were to remain in the small attic annexe of Prinsengracht 263, in central Amsterdam, unable to venture outside, or even to look out of a window, for fear of being seen.
Anne set to work decorating the bedroom she shared with Margot. ‘Thanks to Father – who brought my entire postcard and movie-star collection here beforehand – and to a brush and a pot of glue, I was able to plaster the walls with pictures. It looks much more cheerful.’
Among these pictures were two little black and white photographs: one of Princess Elizabeth and the other of Princess Margaret. They were symbols of hope: Britain was free, and so were the little Princesses.
‘Today is the 18th birthday of Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth of York,’ Anne wrote in her diary on April 21, 1944, nearly two years into her time in the annexe. ‘We’ve been wondering which prince they’ll marry this beauty off to, but can’t think of a suitable candidate; perhaps her sister, Princess Margaret Rose, can have Crown Prince Baudouin of Belgium!’
On the morning of August 4, 1944, the Franks’ hiding place was raided by the police. They were led away at gunpoint. Picking up Otto Frank’s briefcase, the chief policeman saw a book inside it and threw it to the floor, to make room for the small quantity of valuables and money he had found. This was the diary of Anne Frank.
The family were transported to Auschwitz on the very last train to the concentration camp.
In November, Anne and Margot were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen. At some time in February or early March 1945, Margot died, followed, the next day, by Anne.
Thirty years later, in 1974, Queen Elizabeth II learned that Anne had stuck pictures of her and her sister to her bedroom wall. She wrote to Otto Frank, the sole survivor of the family, expressing the hope that ‘perhaps this photograph gave your daughter a moment’s pleasure during that dreadful time’.
On June 26, 2015, at the age of 89, the Queen visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany to commemorate the 70th anniversary of its liberation by British soldiers.
First, she met a small group of survivors and their liberators. Then she walked to the memorial gravestone to Margot Frank, 1926–1945, and Anne Frank, 1929–1945, and bowed her head in homage.
How she tricked John Prescott
Those by nature wary of the Queen convinced themselves that she regarded them with an equal suspicion. Class warriors spotted a fellow class warrior, albeit one working for the other side.
In 1970, the Queen paid a visit to Hull soon after the burly trade union official John Prescott [later Deputy Prime Minister] was first elected Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull.
When the Royal Yacht Britannia docked in the harbour, all three Hull MPs stood ready to be presented. A bullish republican, Prescott had at first refused to attend, but his local Labour Party insisted he should. He was adamant, though, that he would never, ever bow to royalty.
‘So we lined up, with Pauline [his wife], a convinced monarchist, doing her curtsy.
‘I was surprised at how small the Queen was, and when it came to my turn, she mumbled something. I couldn’t hear what it was so, naturally, I bent down. She just smiled. She knew she’d got me.
‘As far as everyone watching was concerned, and the local photographers, it looked as if I was bowing. But I wasn’t.
‘She deliberately lowered her voice and caught me out.’
- Adapted from A Voyage Around The Queen by Craig Brown (Fourth Estate, £25) to be published on August 29. © Craig Brown 2024. To order a copy for £21.25 (offer valid to 31/8/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.