Coronation 1953

Coronation Tea Party

I was seven at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation, though I can't say that the importance of the event particularly resonated with me, save that it seemed to be a great excuse for jelly and cake.

We lived at the time in the small village of Marple Bridge in what has now been swallowed up by Greater Manchester, though the town centre is a designated conservation area and still quite pretty, if industrially so. It was historically part of the Civil Parish of Glossop, Derbyshire, but I think at the time of the Coronation, it had become Cheshire.

We kids would have the run of the place in 1953, but now the busy A626 cuts through it – I suppose if you were driving from South Yorkshire towards Manchester Airport over the lovely Snake Pass it might well be your chosen route.

Mother had a treadle sewing machine and made yards and yards of bunting sitting at a downstairs window, feeding it as she sewed to the children outside as we pulled it across the street to festoon the pub garden where we had planned to have our tea party.

Most of the village didn't have electricity then. Only the village pub, the Chapel and the Sunday School were so fortunate so the opportunity for viewing the event on the TV was limited to the menfolk, who gathered in the Sunday School hall. Whilst waiting for our tea party we children would dare each other to take a peep at this wonderful little picture machine in the hall, only to be shooed out by our fathers, intently following proceedings.

Oh but it rained! And we could see our party in the pub garden, along with sandwiches and pop, disappearing. But not a problem for our resourceful mothers and I can't at all remember how it happened, or to whom it belonged, but there was an empty house in the village that they commandeered for the afternoon, cleaning and decorating with the bunting and dragging in tables so the party could go on.

That's me, sitting third back on the right hand side of the table, my little brother in front.

by Pam R, aged seventy seven and three quarters!