'THE QUEEN'S EMOTIONS WERE VERY MIXED AT HER CORONATION''

FOR THE YOUNG MONARCH, DEALING WITH HER FATHER'S DEATH THEN BEGINNING HER LIFE AS A SOVEREIGN WAS BITTERSWEET

- ANNA POINTER

When the glittering coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place on 2 June 1953 at Westminster Abbey, she became only the sixth woman in history to ascend to the British throne. It was the first coronation ever to be televised, and the jubilant occasion almost 70 years ago was watched by 27 million people in the UK, with 11 million tuned in via radio. Many of those who remember the event describe it as a much-needed celebration which signified a new optimism for Britain’s post-war recovery.

For the 27-year-old monarch, the day was clearly the most surreal in her young life.

“Her emotions would have been very mixed,” says royal biographer Deborah Hart Strober. “She was Queen because her beloved father had passed on, and she must have been thinking, ‘I’m only here because I’ve lost him.’ It’s a situation Prince Charles is going to face too when he becomes King.”

The Queen had ascended to the throne upon the death of her father, King George VI, on 6 February the previous year. The coronation of any new sovereign always takes place many months later, allowing for a period of mourning and for the ceremony to be planned with military precision.

In a BBC documentary screened in 2018, the Queen said of her coronation, “It’s the beginning of one’s life really as a sovereign. It is sort of a pageant of chivalry and an old-fashioned way of doing things. I’ve seen one coronation and been the recipient in the other, which is pretty remarkable.”