The Coronation

 Friday woke at 5 and then 9! SM and S. To UNACC chair based exercises and we were filmed. Liz came for lunch. I was interviewed for the film. 

Here are my notes: Born in Cheltenham 3 months old to Johannesburg. In 1952 my Mum brought me to England to meet my grandparents. I loved it - it was so green! We listened to BBC world service and my Dad bought the 3 records. He was organist and choir master at St Mark’s, Yeoville which had a good choir so we sang many of the anthems sung at the Coronation. Vaughan Williams introduced this hymn for the first time and this has been used many times since then. He also composed O taste and see, an exquisite miniature. Dad had the service books with all the music included.

Walton composed Orb and sceptre and this is the organ arrangement.

We would go to the cinema every Saturday so we saw the Pathe newsreels and films of the coronation. There was no TV in South Africa at that time. I started collecting books about the Royal family.

In 1955 the comedy film “John and Julie”came out starring Moira Lister, Sid James, Peter Sellars and Wilfrid Hyde White. It was about a boy and girl from Dorset who decide to go to see the Coronation. Eddie Calvert played the trumpet tune and here is the piano score.  It was funny and showed England as a wonderful beautiful place full of kind helpful people. The reality was that rationing only ended in 1954 and many were still homeless or living in prefabs. The film is on DVD and you can find extracts on You tube including a scene where the little girl eyes up a picnic basket full of goodies belonging to the American couple who give the two a lift to get to London. It could not happen now!

I think “colonials” were very Royalist especially as it gave us an identity in a country ruled by Afrikaners and suffering from apartheid.