\n
As our village Jubilee Committee worked so hard putting together the programme of events for us, I felt I\u2019d like to contribute towards the \u201850s exhibition by recording my memories of watching the Coronation procession in London when I was ten years of age.<\/p>\n
We were living in Dinas Powis at that time, near the train station. I had an Aunty Connie with a good job in the offices of the GWR (Great Western Railway). She had been promoted from the Cardiff office to a higher paid job near Paddington Station, London. She was able to rent a first floor flat with a balcony in a Victorian building near the station, at a reduced rent because GWR owned many of the blocks. The back windows of her flat looked onto the main line.<\/p>\n
She took my Welsh grandmother to live with her. My grandmother did all the cooking. She would hold up her walking stick to stop the traffic whenever she wanted to cross the road to the grocer\u2019s shop; imagine that these days! Milk was delivered daily by a Welsh farmer who kept cows and had a dairy near Paddington; he was a Jones. My Nan would invite him in for tea and cake and they would enjoy a good chat in Welsh in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
On the day before the Coronation, my mother, my best friend Edna, and I travelled by train to Paddington where we all squashed into the two-bedroom flat. A picnic was packed and the next day we all set off very early to walk to Hyde Park. It was still dark.<\/p>\n
As we walked, more and more people joined us, plus many mounted police. I was fascinated by them having lights on the horses\u2019 stirrups and on the policemen\u2019s helmets. To me, the horses seemed enormous.<\/p>\n
It was still just dawn when we arrived at my aunt\u2019s chosen spot; there were already rows and rows of people in position. I think my aunt and my mother had little folding stools and we had blankets, as it was quite chilly. There were already soldiers in position lining the route. Everyone was very excited and happy. Toilet blocks had been set up and there was bunting everywhere.<\/p>\n
As the time for the procession drew nearer, all the children were encouraged by the crowd to sit on the kerbside behind the soldiers. At one point, the soldiers were allowed to relax and eat the rations they had been issued. A couple of soldiers gave us their bars of chocolate. As time went on, we saw a few soldiers faint, as they had been standing to attention for many hours. They were whisked away very quickly on stretchers.<\/p>\n
My mother and aunt were way back in the crowd; they passed us sandwiches and fruit across the happy people. We had to wait a very long time as we were positioned to see the procession once it was on its way back from the coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey. There were loudspeakers playing the whole time and relaying the service from the Abbey. Everyone was excited and expectant. It started to rain quite heavily but people had prepared, and we must have had waterproofs as I don\u2019t remember being wet. We weren\u2019t bored as there was so much to see and we had sweets and teddy bears. The crowd was very noisy.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Picture13.jpg?resize=500%2C375\")
<\/p>\n
It was raining very heavily by the time the actual procession began to arrive. We loved the colours of the uniforms and all the horses. I vividly remember the gold coach with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh passing us. The Queen was sitting up very straight, smiling and waving. They passed quite slowly, followed by a coach carrying the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. Of the many carriages that followed, most with hoods up because it was raining heavily, the highlight for us was Queen S\u0101lote of Tonga. She was standing up, waving and smiling at everyone. She was an enormous and very colourful lady. She just stood in the rain. The procession took a long time to pass. We then had to walk back to Paddington, weary and, probably, grumpy.<\/p>\n
My grandmother watched the whole day on a little television set in the grocer\u2019s shop. My father couldn\u2019t be with us as there wasn\u2019t enough room for him to stay in my aunt\u2019s flat. I can only find one photo taken of the day; it\u2019s taken on my aunt\u2019s balcony, of me and my best friend Edna. My aunt and mother had been too far back in the crowd to take any photos of the procession. I had a mug from school and a miniature gold coach.<\/p>\n
Sandra Jones<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I WAS THERE! As our village Jubilee Committee worked so hard putting together the programme of events for us, I felt I\u2019d like to contribute towards the \u201850s exhibition by recording my memories of watching the Coronation procession in London when I was ten years of age. We were living in Dinas Powis at that time, near the train station. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[334],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-35S","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11871,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=11871","url_meta":{"origin":11896,"position":0},"title":"Seventy Years Of Wenvoe In Transit","author":"Alan Williams","date":"7th July 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"FORWARD OR BACK?: SEVENTY YEARS OF WENVOE IN TRANSIT Recent weeks have seen the celebration of the Queen\u2019s platinum jubilee, including a great display of local memorabilia organised by Mike and Glenys Tucker, which together with the Barry Festival of Transport gave me food for thought on the changes in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Interest Articles"","block_context":{"text":"General Interest Articles","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=334"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Picture8.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Picture8.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Picture8.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2774,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=2774","url_meta":{"origin":11896,"position":1},"title":"Uskmouth Nature Reserve","author":"Alan Williams","date":"5th March 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Uskmouth Nature Reserve We parked at the RSPB nature reserve, which is in the Gwent levels near Nash, on a very cold but sunny morning. There was still ice on the ground as we set off at 10a.m. We went east across fields and then northeast towards Nash passing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15450,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=15450","url_meta":{"origin":11896,"position":2},"title":"Wolvesnewton and Trebanog","author":"Alan Williams","date":"2nd May 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Wolvesnewton This was a walk, west of Chepstow exploring the Monmouthshire countryside, taking in three churches and passing the Model farm. It was a clear sunny day, but the beginning of March and frost remained in shaded places all day. Someone had had some fun, models of a dragon, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture6-1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9687,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=9687","url_meta":{"origin":11896,"position":3},"title":"Turn On, Tune In And Drop\u2026\u2026Everything !","author":"Alan Williams","date":"27th May 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"TURN ON, TUNE IN AND DROP\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026EVERYTHING ! The Wenvoe Mast is transmitting another Royal Event this June On 17th April, more than 13 million people in the UK watched live television coverage of the funeral of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. The BBC\u2019s coverage of the scaled-back military procession\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Interest Articles"","block_context":{"text":"General Interest Articles","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=334"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Picture3-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16905,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=16905","url_meta":{"origin":11896,"position":4},"title":"Hiking And Biking With Richard Trevithick Part 2","author":"Alan Williams","date":"2nd May 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"ARTICLES of GENERAL INTEREST HIKING AND BIKING WITH RICHARD TREVITHICK Part 2 Merthyr Tydfil, being naturally blessed with iron ore, limestone and trees to make charcoal (later to be replaced with actual coal) was one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1700s. It was not, however,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Items for May 2026"","block_context":{"text":"New Items for May 2026","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=433"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pontygwaith.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10329,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=10329","url_meta":{"origin":11896,"position":5},"title":"The London Marathon For Marie Curie","author":"Alan Williams","date":"19th September 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 RUNNING THE LONDON MARATHON FOR MARIE CURIE Hello everyone! I am incredibly lucky to be running the 2021 London Marathon for Marie Curie, a charity extremely close to my family\u2019s heart. We lost my dad, Alun, to bowel cancer in 2008. At the time, I was only eight years\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Event Notices"","block_context":{"text":"Event Notices","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=237"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11896"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11896"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11960,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11896\/revisions\/11960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}