Welwyn Garden City Celebrates
Events in Welwyn Garden City celebrating the Coronation in 1953
By Robert Gill
In June 1953, Welwyn Garden City celebrated the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II with a number of events and street parties.
In a pamphlet published at the time, there are details of concerts, communal TV viewing of the Coronation in Handside School and Murphy Radio Canteen plus among others, a cycling road race organised by the Welwyn Wheelers.
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I was 4 at the time, we lived in Melbourne Court where a party was organised. It should have been held outside but due to poor weather it was held in the garages! I remember we were in Arthur Challis’s garage (he lived at 14, we were living at my Grandma Gatford’s at 13). We were lucky enough to have a TV (with a nine inch screen!) to watch the big event on in Gran’s living room.
I remember it was a very wet day and I’m not sure what happened to the festivities planned to take place on the Campus, but my mother and father took my brother and me to the canteen at Murphy Radio, to watch the Coronation on television. Stacking tubular steel chairs were arranged in rows around a central podium, where several television sets with what must have been the biggest screens then available (probably about 24-inch) were arranged to face out towards the chairs. People took thermos flasks of hot drinks, and sandwiches, as it was a very long ceremony. I don’t remember much of the day (I was only just seven years old) but seeing some of the archive footage of the Coronation on television in recent days has brought back the memories. It was a pity that the weather was so bad, but the spirit of the nation was not dampened one bit, and I count myself fortunate to have witnessed such an important historical event by the (then) modern miracle of television.