By Cecilia Nasmith
The pageantry surrounding a special pair of visitors to Grafton Public School June 2 – it is to be hoped – gave the students a hint of what it might have been like to have been in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey exactly 70 years earlier to see Queen Elizabeth II coronated.
Alnwick-Haldimand Township crier Liam Cragg was resplendent in his green coat and feathered tricorn hat as he shouted his hear-ye's outside the library door and rang his brass bell for attention. And he served as escort for long-time Grafton resident Phillippa Wilmer, who shared her memories of being presented to the monarch who was celebrating her Platinum Jubilee that day.
“Today in our nation – and throughout the Commonwealth – we are celebrating our glorious Queen’s Platinum Jubilee,” Cragg shouted.
“Elizabeth – the second of that name – our most beloved Sovereign and Head of the Commonwealth for 70 years.
“How apt that this should be the Platinum anniversary of her accession. Platinum – that most noble of medals, more precious even than gold.
“And so it is in honour of this unique occasion that beacons will be lit this evening throughout the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the UK Overseas Territories and in all the Capital Cities of the Commonwealth
“Let it be known in proclaiming this tribute to Her Majesty the Queen on her Platinum Jubilee that we are one nation and one Commonwealth
'God save the Queen,” he concluded before leading the Union Jack-waving students in singing the song of the same name.
As Wilmer would later tell the students, she is one of few people who have lived long enough to have sung God Save The King, which was the appropriate anthem before the Queen's father George VI died Feb. 6, 1952.
The visitors were escorted to the library by Principal Greg Sumi, where Cragg tried to explain why the milestone is so noteworthy.
“Queen Elizabeth is like the biggest rock star, the most famous of the famous, and she has been doing this for 70 years,” he said.
Back when he was their age, he continued, and before O Canada was adopted as our national anthem in 1980, Canadian students began their school day by singing God Save The Queen.
The coronation took place at a time when telephones and television sets were not necessarily in every home – and there was only one channel if your family did have a TV. News came to people over the radio and in the newspaper.
Cragg displayed a deeply yellowed Toronto Daily Star Souvenir Coronation Edition, noting that the paper was very proud to have gotten the photos a mere four days after the event.
Wilmer shared her own story, for she was present at the time.
The daughter of a general in the British army, she spent her childhood in seven different countries and countless different schools. She'd lived on a farm in Africa and had military escorts to school in Malaya due to the Communist insurrection of the times.
She'd managed to be in London in 1947, however, to be there for the Royal Wedding. She actually slept on the sidewalk the night before in order to stake out a good place to stand when the procession went by. And she got a good view because the procession (very obligingly) went past quite slowly, this beautifully dressed young woman in a carriage drawn by magnificent horses.
Then, in 1952, she was freshly back from Malaya in time for the Coronation Parade. For this event, they put up stands or bleachers with assigned seats, which was marvellous fun for her as she watched a woman in spectacular clothing riding by in an open cage of a carriage, followed by a procession that included her future husband.
The whole of London was in full celebration mode, she said, and you could feel it in the atmosphere.
“It was like in Toronto after the Raptors won!” she said.
And within a few years, she would have the honour of being presented twice to Her Majesty. Cragg stood up and took instruction from her to illustrate the fine art of the proper curtsy – right foot behind the left for stability as one stooped low without bending the back.
“That curtsy took us an hour to learn,” she declared.
The protocol to be presented includes arriving at Buckingham Palace, presenting one's card or invitation, then lining up in the corridor until one's name is called.
Asked if there were rules for being in the company of the Queen, Wilmer said, “Quite a lot!”
Chiefly, she said, you are not to initiate conversation with her, and certainly not to swear.
One of the students asked Wilmer what the Queen represented to them, and she cited such virtues as manners and civility. When parents told their children to behave in those days, they were warned that they were upholding the honour of the Throne.
“It's such a 'me' world nowadays,” she said.
“We were just coming out of the Second World War, everybody having gone through difficult years. Everybody was much nicer to everybody than they are now,” she said.
“It was very tough, but it was great fun.”
England's post-war economy was far from prosperous, and rationing was still in effect. You could not buy such staples as butter and sugar without the appropriate ration coupons. In fact, the Queen's magnificent Coronation gown was only possible because of so many people who put their textile rations together for that purpose.
With the war so fresh in living memory, she said, “The Royal Family were a bond, and they got an enormous amount of respect.”
While a thank-you card was presented to Wilmer for her visit, many students took a moment (upon being dismissed) to line up and tell her personally how much they had enjoyed her stories.
