LUCY
IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON BY THE TIME LUCY AND BETTY MADEit home. Like millions of people around the country, they knew that a great coronation deserved a top-notch street party, and they couldn’t wait to get it started.
The place was already teeming with life, children racing between houses in high spirits, the men putting up a boundary to stop the cars.
Today the street was theirs.
Lengths of red, white and blue bunting crisscrossed overhead, and each of the terraced houses was adorned with flowers, streamers and balloons. It was a day for the whole country to celebrate.
‘Come on, we have to get our dining table,’ Lucy said, hurrying Betty into the house to add theirs to the line of tables down the centre of the road.
After all the preparations and tension of the day, Lucy felt alive, like she was finally living her own life. Not her mother’s and Stan’s view of herself, nor Richard’s adulation and empty promises, but rather her own version of Lucy, that she was an honest, steadfast young woman taking life one step at a time.
Betty had taken her under her wing. Sometimes all you need is for someone to say, ‘You’re perfect just the way you are.’
The neighbourhood women were preparing a banquet to feed over a hundred people. The seats filled quickly, mostly with older residents and children – the younger men and women would be serving them. Lucy was given a paper hat that said ‘Waitress’ in big letters, and she began her work by helping children with their homemade party crowns.Little girls wore skirts of red, white and blue netting, which puffed out when they spun around.
With a great cheer, the street’s ‘queen’ was led from her house, and today the honour had been given to Annabel. Dressed in a neighbour’s old wedding gown, she was guided to the ‘throne’ – a dining chair – by the ‘archbishop’ – the lad from the corner shop wearing his dad’s red dressing gown over his suit.
After a short ceremony, a cardboard crown was placed on her head, and everyone lined up to pay homage to the new queen. Annabel acted the part with aplomb, until the ‘archbishop’ asked for a dance, and they waltzed delightedly around the throne as the gramophone played ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’.
‘More sherry, waitress!’ Betty snapped her fingers at Lucy, making everyone laugh. She was sitting with the older ladies, who had watched the coronation on a small television. They’d clubbed together to rent one for the occasion, as had a lot of people around the country. ‘It was tiny,’ Betty had whispered, ‘but you could see right inside the abbey, watch the queen being crowned, everything except the anointing part. For that they put on a holding screen, quite useful for making another pot of tea.’ She chuckled.
Lucy crouched down beside her. ‘We’re so lucky, aren’t we, being able to celebrate together. I hadn’t realized how much I needed friends.’
‘Well, no harm done, love. And you’ll know better next time.’ She picked up a curl of Lucy’s hair, which was still blonde. ‘Any chance of changing it back?’
But Lucy shrugged. ‘Maybe not quite yet! It’s nice to get a bit of attention.’
‘What about that young man from the band at Shirley’s wedding? What was his name again, Morris?’
Lucy laughed. ‘I’m happy on my own for now.’ Still, she found herself looking around. ‘But he should be arriving with the band soon.’ She beamed with excitement. ‘My first proper performance in London!’
After a parade of costumes, there were races for the children. Egg and Spoon was followed by a three-legged dash and then a wheelbarrowrace, the winners presented with coronation sweets. Party games came next, Oranges and Lemons and Pass the Parcel.
Finally, it was time for the grand feast. Every house had been contributing money each week for six months to build a kitty to cover the decorations and the ingredients for pies, sandwiches and cakes. A special salad called Coronation Chicken had been created for the queen’s luncheon, so Lucy and Betty had carved up a cold roast chicken and mixed it with curry powder and cream to fill bread rolls. The children had lemonade, there was beer and tea for the adults, and Lucy saw a bottle of Scotch going around, too.
At the end of the feast, everyone tucked into an enormous jelly trifle coloured red, white and blue.
As the younger children began to droop into chairs and onto doorsteps, Caroline and Miranda arrived back from the afternoon at work, and everyone gathered around to hear the news from inside the palace.
‘It was extraordinary!’ Caroline confided. ‘As soon as we arrived back at the palace, the queen took off her crown and ran through the corridors laughing, the maids of honour rushing behind her, me and the dresser sprinting to keep up. Just beside the Green Drawing Room, she threw herself onto a long red sofa, laughing uncontrollably as her maids of honour collapsed around her. By the time I arrived, all I saw was a writhing mass of white silk dresses amid the cacophony of laughter.’
‘It must have been the relief that the public part of the day was over.’
‘She was always nervous about it being televised,’ Caroline said. ‘Knowing the whole world was watching. Then they had the official photographs. Philip was making wry jokes, disrupting progress and being a bit hostile to the photographer, the Queen Mother’s friend Cecil Beaton. No doubt Philip was unhappy that it wasn’t his friend Baron from his Thursday Lunch Club. But Beaton sarcastically suggested that Philip should take the pictures himself, and he calmed down, albeit huffily.’
The crowd laughed, Betty adding, ‘We knew this would turn into a tit-for-tat match between Philip and the Queen Mother.’
‘But it was such a sight to see, the queen looking so radiant with little Charles and Anne in front, unable to keep still.’
‘What a day it must have been for them,’ Betty said, ‘watching their mother become the sovereign, and especially for Charles, knowing that one day it would be him.’
Everyone clamoured for details about the balcony appearance, how the crowd was ecstatic, the cheers heard from miles away.
‘And then at last Queen Elizabeth was allowed to retreat so that Miss MacDonald and I could redo her hair and makeup – and find a fresh pair of shoes – ready for the official banquet. The great ballroom was gleaming with silverware and crystal glasses,’ Caroline said. ‘The atmosphere full of excitement. Only the Queen Mother looked a little sad, perhaps realizing that it marked the end of her reign. She always did like to be in the spotlight.’
At the end of the road, the men had made a makeshift stage, and the band had begun to set up.
