The Coronation - Inevitably! - Celia Rees

Coronation Mug - 1953

I'm not a royalist, by any means, but as my allotted History Girls post falls the day before the Coronation, I didn't think that I could ignore this great national occasion. Whatever one's thoughts are about the monarchy (and I have views) this is the History Girls Blog after all and the ritual which is the coronation reaches back deep into history. The order of service and the liturgy extends back to the 10th Century and the ultimate roots of the ritual lie in the Bronze Age, as explained by Tom Holland on The Rest Is History, the superb podcast he shares with Dominic Sandbrook. If you don't already listen, you are missing a treat. 

Coronation Mug - 2023 (attr.Adèle Geras)

 By tomorrow evening, I will have witnessed two coronations. I was three when Elizabeth was crowned Queen in 1953. The world is very different now.  For me, this is neatly illustrated by the different coronation mug designs. There are plenty of mugs for this coronation of traditional design but in 1953 this 2023 design would have been unimaginable.

So very much has changed between now and then. The 1953 Coronation is my clearest early memory.  All the neighbours crowded into the McCauley's sitting room because they were the one of the few families in the street with a television. It was in the corner of the room, encased in a polished wooden cabinet. The screen was very small, the picture black and white and very fuzzy (but that might have been the McCauley's set). I'd never seen television before. I went to see where the horses' legs were then I decided I didn't like it and hid behind the settee. I was eventually coaxed out to sit on my father's knee and watch what seemed like an endless procession of soldiers, sailors, coaches and men on horses. The parading of our own armed forces and those of the Commonwealth. 

For Charles' coronation, the procession through London has been shortened, parred down, modernised. The ceremony inside Westminster Abbey, however, will remain the same.  The robes, regalia, the order of service, go back at least a thousand years. There are two changes: ambergris has been omitted from the holy oil (to make it vegan friendly) and the central ritual, the anointing, will take place behind a screen, not under a canopy. Screen or canopy, the anointing of the monarch with holy oil goes back to the Old Testament, a ritual so sacred that it is kept away from public eyes. In 1953 it was not even televised. All this reminds us that we live in a monarchy and that the monarch is marked out from the rest of us by God. Awesome, in the true sense of the word, and profoundly odd - an ancient mystery being carried out in the twenty-first century.  

To mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, children were given little models of the State Coach as souvenirs. Time and wear have taken a toll on these mementoes but they were much prized and a few have survived. I still have mine and so does my friend, Rachel. 

Coronation coach - attr. Rachel Bagley

Coronation Day, 1953, it rained but everyone went out in the afternoon to celebrate this great occasion. There was an ox roast in the park and a street party which was moved into the Mills' garage when the rain intensified. There were sandwiches, cake, jelly, peaches and evaporated milk. There will be street parties tomorrow, although fewer than in 1953. How will the table differ? I doubt there will be jelly and evaporated milk. No crisps in 1953, no nibbles of any kind. Apparently, the popular 2023 celebratory choices are Quiche and Fizz, unimaginable in 1953, but Coronation Chicken is up there with them.  

1953 Street Party

1n 1953, Coronation Chicken had only just been invented by celebrated cookery writer Constance Spry for the official Coronation Luncheon. It has since become a stalwart of the buffet and a popular sandwich filling. This concoction of chicken, mayonnaise, apricot jam (or mango chutney) and curry powder will be served at street parties on Saturday (see above), a tenuous link to the last coronation. A very 2023 hack on the Coronation Chicken is M&S's Coronation Scotch Egg. A delicacy not dreamed of in 1953.

Coronation Chicken

M&S Coronation Scotch Egg

Enjoy the Coronation of Charles III however you choose to celebrate it and bon appetite!

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

THE QUEEN AND I By Adèle Geras

Elizabeth II and I go back a very long way. When I was eight years old, George VI died and I can remember all the grown-ups around me being very upset. The photograph of the three queens in mourning made a strong impression on me.

There also seemed to be a great deal of coverage of the Young Princesses, as they were called. I was at an age when I loved sticking things in scrapbooks. This must have been (as both Elizabeth and my own favourite, Margaret Rose....oh, how I loved the name!...were now grown-up) because of Crawfie's book about her time as nanny and governess in the Royal Household. Crawfie was the nickname of Marion Crawford and her book was called The Little Princesses. It was published in 1950 and the Royals never forgave Crawfie and had no contact with her ever again. I can't remember the physical book - my mother would never have read such a thing, I don't think - but extracts from it appeared in Woman's Own, and that magazine was certainly around during my childhood. So I began to read about the Princesses and to snip pictures out of the newspapers when I was about seven or eight. I stuck these in a scrapbook together with photos of the movie stars to whom I was totally devoted. By the time I was eight, I was a reader of both Silver Screen and Photoplay. My father's secretary, Sarah Tan, used to pass her copies on to me and I treasured them and read every word I could about the stars I adored. At this time, my friends and I played endless games which revolved round the films we'd seen. The fact that I never got to play Jane Powell but always had to be Ann Miller still rankles a bit. Ann Miller was the funny one, and even though she always had spectacular dance numbers in every single film, she was NOT the Romantic Lead. Sigh!

But back to the Queen. From the beginning of 1953, there was much chat about the Coronation. We were living in North Borneo in a town which was then called Jesselton. Our house was in the shadow of Mount Kinabalu and about fifty yards from a beach like the ones you see in Bacardi and Bounty advertisements. My first published work ever appeared in the local newspaper, The Sabah Times. I won a story competition and my prize was a Parker '51 Pen and Pencil set. For anyone who wishes to read about this period of my life in some detail, my novel OTHER ECHOES is extremely autobiographical.




The Coronation itself created, in this British Colony, many different ceremonies and parties. I remember being drilled with all the other schoolchildren for a kind of parade on the Padang: the playing field outside the Club. There were copies of the Illustrated London News kept at the Club and after the event, pictures like these







appeared for us to pore over and cut out and paste into our scrapbooks. I am sure my parents went out to dinner all over the place. There must have been a Reception at Government House to which I wasn't invited. What I do remember most clearly was the Coronation Picnic.

Picnics happened all the time in Jesselton. A few families would hire a motor launch and pack some bottles and snacks of various kinds and set off across a completely translucent sea to an outlying island called Gaya Island. The children played with fantastical shells and swam in the sea and made things out of coral and the adults lay about and drank beer and lemonade and gossiped in the shade. We'd spend the morning on the island and then go back at lunch time to eat a curry with at least 15 side dishes (sambals) and then, as I remember, collapse into a deep sleep till late afternoon.

I took this pattern, this routine, and wrote a short novel about it. I made the picnic special by linking it to the Coronation. I added a supernatural element. I put into it as much detail as I could about the kinds of things we did on picnics and I also made sure that my friends were as accurately depicted as possible. I even tried to be honest about myself. THE CORONATION PICNIC was published in 1989, as a Hamish Hamilton Antelope book.



One of the things that happens in the story is a pretend Coronation. Because the book is out of print, I'm going to quote a longish passage:

"The children started singing. First they sang 'We Three Kings' because, as Tonia said, it sounded royal. Then they sang 'Rock of Ages' because it was dignified. Amy listened. When the hymns were over, the first words of 'God Save the Queen' rose into the air. Amy started walking slowly up the path in as stately a way as possible. The red and blue and white striped towel hung down behind her and trailed on the sand. Luise had chosen the place well. Trees nearly met over her head as she walked. She pretended she was really Princess Elizabeth, walking up the length of Westminster Abbey in a gown encrusted with jewels. As she knelt down in the sand and Ian put the wreath of creepers round her head, she remembered pictures Mrs Aston had shown them of the real crown, studded with gemstones the size of boiled sweets."



This is my way of saying: Happy Jubilee Year to Elizabeth II. I'm not a Royalist in any way but I have loved following the Royal Drama over the last sixty years and I look forward to lots more pleasure and fun to come. I no longer stick photos in scrapbooks, but I do enjoy reading about and looking at someone whose life and family I've been gazing at and thinking about since I was a very small girl. Vivat Regina!