My 1953 Coronation Memory

At the last coronation I was just five years and ten months old. I lived with my parents on a brand new gigantic council house estate. The gardens were marked out with regularly placed concrete posts with strong wire going between the uprights. There were small plants growing beneath the lowest wire. I stood in my garden and said to my neighbour, a girl aged nearly five, over the fence in the adjoining garden, “I bet you, you can’t throw that large stone.” She promptly picked up the nearest boulder without hesitation and tossed the stone towards me. It duly hit me in the face causing my nose to start bleeding. I spent the afternoon of 6 June 1953 perched over a white enamel bucket in the kitchen of the house of the little girl, trying to stop the blood pouring out whilst my members of my family watched the Coronation on the small 9inch television in the living room. I wasn’t allowed to watch for fear of blood getting onto the carpet.

Anon