The Queen, Banger and the King
Reflections on 2 coronations 7 decades joined together by a fluffy mongrel
21 April 2023
Things are hotting up at last. There still seems no real buzz of excitement over it, but it is coming. I am talking of course about the crowning of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. I have never actually met Charles, though I have met his mum. He has been very much a presence in these parts of England (Norfolk) all his life. Apparently Charles and Anne used to play as children in the grounds of Hillington Hall near Kings Lynn while my father tormented the trout in the river Babingley which passed through the grounds of Hillington Hall. Over the years Charles put in many appearances in King’s Lynn where I worked for the greater part of my career. I once spotted him with William and Harry walking round Castle Acre where I used to live. On another occasion he waved at me. I was the only person standing on a street corner in Kings Lynn and he gave me a big friendly wave with a broad grin. Perhaps he thought I was someone else.
I have always thought of him as being a little eccentric and very much under the thumb of the Queen. There were rumours from time to time that she hung on for as long as she did to prevent him becoming King. If that is so, was it not a little cruel? Then of course there was the news that he talked to his plants, and therefore must have been a little batty. But new scientific reports indicate that this may not have been as weird as it sounds; that plants indeed do communicate, so maybe Charles was ahead of the game.
He is a tad younger than I am though I like to think he looks older. As my years advanced, policemen became younger, followed by politicians, but at least I can say I am older than the King.
All of this has been prompted following a visit today to our local Lidl store where I found coronation mugs on sale. And that enables me to wind back the years, all 70 of them, to the coronation of Charles’s mum.
Here is what happened then in 1953
That year three things happened. First Banger fell off a cliff, then we had a rain swept holiday at Mundesley and lastly (in importance to my 6 year old mind) the Queen was put to bed and given a new hat.
That day it rained – the kind of rain that was called rain then, not drought as it is termed these days. Not many had televisions (my parents did not) and with some excitement we, the children, were loaded into the car to drive into the Fens to the home of a wealthy farmer who did indeed have one of these wonderful boxes. We splashed through puddles and the ancient windscreen wipers struggled to clear the rain. Eventually we went down a long tree lined drive and reached the impressive farm house.
There, in an otherwise spacious and elegant drawing room was the television. I don’t remember it as being big then. As I was very small the television screen must have been tiny.
We gathered round, the children on the floor, the adults seated upright, as we watched the ghostly images of a black and white queen in a black and white carriage being driven for the ceremony. Black and white was an exaggeration. It was mostly shades of grey. It seemed interminable and, were it not for a steady supply of cakes from the farmer’s wife, I am sure that my brother and I would have rebelled or started fighting.
The celebrations then in Wisbech (where I spent my childhood) were similar to what will happen next, with houses festooned with flags, street parties and of course mugs for the children (I still have the mug I was given 70 years ago). I remember that everyone was encouraged to decorate their front door, and my father grumpily hanging up some red white and blue balloons. Needless to say we did not win a prize.
A few weeks after the coronation our family spent a week in a caravan perched on the top of a cliff at Mundesley. The caravan belonged to a local doctor who had lent it to us. It rained incessantly and there were howling gales. The caravan rocked alarmingly in the wind.
It was not long after the war, and the army were still hard at work clearing land mines from the sea below the cliff. They had sea-going tanks, and every now and then there would be a huge plume of water as another mine was detonated. For a six year old, this was much more fun than a sunny beach. But the parents needed respite and as a treat we saw the coronation all over again at the same cinema in Cromer as is still going strong – though it has now been converted into several screens.
I remember snatches from the film – the huge carriage that took the Queen to and from the ceremony, the thronging crowds and pomp and ceremony. There were so many people with crowns on their heads that it was difficult to work out who was the Queen. But most of all I was struck by the fact that the Queen was put to bed during the ceremony and had to try out a new hat.
Looking again at the film of the coronation on You Tube for the first time in several decades, my childhood memory was not far wrong. In the middle of the ceremony something closely resembling the curtains of a 4 poster bed were brought in and held over the Queen while she put on a robe made out of gold cloth.
The “hat” was her Crown, but I wasn’t to know about such things then
The coronation over (again) we returned to our windblown cliff top to continue to watch the army at work, while my father caught small fish which we ate for tea and Banger fell off the cliff.
Banger was a fluffy mongrel who distinguished herself by adopting a family of kittens whose mother had been run over. One of them became our childhood cat. Banger and the cat (Mitty) were lifelong friends and lived to become teenagers (in human years). They both died within a short time of each other.
Banger was special in other ways too. She insisted on travelling in the boot (trunk to you Americans) of the car, and whenever the boot was open she would sit in it expectantly waiting to be taken for a trip.
Banger celebrated the coronation by tumbling down the Mundesley cliff, startling the soldiers below. On arrival at the bottom she dusted herself off, and started to run up the steps cut in the rock to do it again. This was not altogether surprising, as she would always come with us to the local playground. She sat on the roundabouts and would bark until someone made it go round. She also loved going down the slide. She queued up with the children to climb the steps, then would slither down, as often as not on her bottom. She evidently viewed the Mundesley cliffs as a super slide, but she was banned from doing it again, though I don’t think she was confined to the boot of the car.
And so like Banger’s roundabout, history will repeat itself. Other memories will be generated and future grown up children will look back over lifetimes to May 8th 2023 and think about what happened to them at that time. With coastal erosion however, there may not be a cliff left in Cromer for any small dog to fall down. And someone will produce their Lidl mug when the next coronation comes along
Thank you Katharine for this comment, and for exploring my substack files. It is always lovely to get some feedback. I will let you into a secret. You are older than I am, but not by much. I was born in 1947, so we are definitely of the same generation!
I really enjoyed this one because I was still in England for the Queen’s coronation, and my sister and I reminisced about it when Charles was crowned this year. I was born in 1945 and sister in 1942 so we’re a little older than you but the same generation I would say.