Pie 'n' Mash and Prefabs by Norman Jacobs

Pie 'n' Mash and Prefabs by Norman Jacobs

Author:Norman Jacobs [Norman Jacobs]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784183578
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2015-01-14T05:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER SEVEN

JELLY AND ICE CREAM

THE CORONATION

The earliest special day I can remember was the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. I was just four years old when King George VI died, and it is my earliest memory of a national news story. Mum and I were visiting Dad’s sister, Aunt Julie, Uncle Isaac and their four children, my cousins, Wendy, Rita, John and Carol, who also lived in a prefab, in Bethnal Green. I can still clearly remember Uncle Isaac coming home from work, throwing the door open to announce loudly, ‘The King is dead.’ Actually, looking back on it, I’m amazed I understood as he was Scottish and spoke with a very broad accent; most times I couldn’t understand a word he said. I always wondered how Aunt Julie managed. Obviously, on this occasion, he must have put on his poshest voice, owing to the momentous news he had to impart. On our way back to the bus stop to go home, I saw the evening newspaper placards (Star, News and Standard) all carrying the same news.

This, of course, was in February 1952. The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II didn’t take place until June 1953, by which time I was six. For weeks beforehand, preparations were being made and by the time the big day arrived our street was full of flags and pennants flying from every house and stuck up in every window. We had a couple of very large Union Jacks in our windows, together with some other bunting around the prefab.

On the day itself, the first thing that happened was a children’s party, beginning at 9.30am in the Glyn Road Mission Hall, which was acting as the headquarters for the local festivities. There were long tables covered with white sheets laid out in the hall. The food wasn’t particularly stunning as this was still an age of austerity and some food was still on ration (though households were given an extra pound of sugar and four ounces of margarine especially for the celebrations). But in spite of the fact that all we had were fish paste and cucumber sandwiches, sausage rolls, sliced hard-boiled eggs, crisps and jelly and trifle with evaporated milk, along with gallons of orange squash, the whole atmosphere made it seem like a banquet – a veritable queen’s feast, as you might say. The excitement and noise of hundreds of children enjoying themselves got the day off to the perfect start.

Following this, there was a children’s procession, where we walked or rode on our suitably adorned bicycles, tricycles and scooters around the local streets. I still have a photograph of me riding down Millfields Road with Dad proudly looking on.

After the procession, there was a break in proceedings to allow people to go and watch the Coronation itself on television. We were still one of the few families in the street to have a television so we could watch it at home. Many others went to the big television screen specially set up in the Mission Hall.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.