During morning service on February 6th, which I was watching on Zoom, Jane asked "Did anyone remember the day 70 years ago when it was the Queen’s Accession". I remember it well. I was in the sixth form at Balshaw’s Grammar School in Leyland. Mid morning, a message was sent to all the classes from the Headmaster to assemble in the School Hall. When we assembled, the Headmaster told us that the King had died and we now had a Queen - Queen Elizabeth II. We then had to say "The King is dead. Long live the Queen."

The next year, on June 2nd 1953, it was the Queen’s Coronation. Not many people had television in their homes in those days. My father bought a TV so we could watch the Coronation from Westminster Abbey - no colour TV in those days, just black & white. We invited some friends to come to our home to watch the Coronation and a few weeks later we went to the cinema to watch it in colour on The Pathe News.

In late Autumn 1953, the Queen and Prince Philip went on a six month tour of Commonwealth Countries. By then, I was at Southlands Methodist College in London. When the Queen and Prince Philip returned in May 1954 our College principal cancelled lectures so we could travel into London to watch her homecoming procession to welcome them home. My friends and I found a good vantage point on The Mall to watch them pass and wave our paper Union Jacks.