Setting # 1. It is surprising seeing someone extraordinary looking very ordinary in an ordinary setting. I was reading on the Internet, it was just before Christmas and the Mail On Line showed Her Majesty the Queen dressed in coat and headscarf, looking like any ordinary 83-year old lady boarding a commuter train at Kings Cross - the Queen was heading for Sandringham . The Queen would be spending Christmas with her family at her Norfolk residence. True, she went first class, but it was public transport - and must have been a surprise to fellow passengers. Says the Mail report, “An advance first class ticket, without the seniors’ discount, costs £44.40.” Apparently not a one off - but those with their eyes open it must have been something amazing to see the Monarch of Great Britain boarding the same train as a passenger - even if she did pay first class! For those with their cameras, quite a surprise and a day to remember!
Setting # 2. The one experience I remember of seeing an extraordinary person looking quite ordinary in an ordinary setting was on a family walk with friends in some very beautiful gardens that had a wooded area with very tall trees. We lived for 7 years not too far away in Berkshire so we often paid a visit to these beautiful grounds. There are open areas with all kinds of beautiful flowering shrubs, particularly the azalea garden in May, and a very large lake that is home to a variety of water birds. It also includes a recreational area called the Guards Polo Club. That particular area of the garden had an enclosure with a rustic fence surround that kept visitors in the gardens at an appropriate distance.
As we stopped by the entrance of the enclosure along with some others who did the same, a lady emerged from the activity in the sporting ground. She looked like any ordinary lady we might come across wherever we may live. She chatted informally with a couple of chaps and then got behind the wheel of a popular make of car accompanied by a man in the front passenger seat. There were several people in the enclosure who saw her off and we gave way to her car as she drove slowly by with her side-window down. Looking in her side-mirror she gave a smile in return to our own waves and away she went on down a lane leading through the wooded area of the park. Who was she? You’ve guessed. She was the same person, the Monarch of Great Britain. I have a photo of the occasion of her driving her car, with the reflection of my wife in the rear side window as the car went by. Seeing her on TV in grand settings protected by security personnel, I thought it amazing - she could easily have driven by unrecognised, except that we knew we were on Crown property, Virginia Water, and someone drew our attention that the Queen was in the grounds. We did in fact see her in the distance presenting the winning trophy to Prince Charles in his polo outfit, obviously the captain of the winning team. I have colour slides somewhere of her every move from the presentation through to driving away, but the photo
with the Queen’s lovely smile and my wife’s reflection in the half-wound down driver’s window which makes the photo special.
Setting # 3. Now to another setting: “An estimated three million people lined the streets of London to catch a glimpse of the new monarch as she made her way to and from Buckingham Palace in the golden state coach.” (Just a mid-teen youngster making a lone venture I was one of those three million). “The ceremony was watched by millions more around the world as the BBC set up their biggest ever outside broadcast to provide live coverage of the event on radio and television. Street parties were held throughout the United Kingdom as people crowded round television sets to watch the ceremony. Over 20 million people watched the BBC coverage of the coronation. . . . The broadcast was made in 44 languages.” Tuesday, the 2nd of June 1953 was the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Not long having left home in Wales I was quite a novice in my experience of London, and although I had been given previous instructions I can’t remember how I came to choose what I thought was as good a position as any on The Mall - quite near the palace. Admiralty Arch was way in the distance at the other end of The Mall. Members of the Royal Family were being taken to and from the Palace to London’s Westminster Abbey for their rehearsals for the following day. Each time a car emerged from the palace it created an atmosphere of excitement. Late in the night I bedded down on the pavement of The Mall along with so many other visitors hopeful for a few hours sleep. Next morning the time for the procession to Westminster Abbey saw the route double lined either side shoulder to shoulder with uniformed servicemen and police. It was such a lavish ceremony steeped in a thousand years of tradition? For a young lad in his mid-teens it was a never to be forgotten experience, ‘the wonder of it all.’
And maybe that is where the surprise came for me years later, that the 27-year old Queen of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, who had become the centre of the world’s stage at her coronation - surrounded by dignitaries and representatives of countries from around the world - was years later the same person who drove her own car alongside us in those gardens where we were walking, with the driver’s window half down and giving us her wonderful smile. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were on the Crown Estate known as Virginia Water, and that there had been a polo match, and someone drew our attention to the fact that the Queen was in the polo grounds, the lady driving the car might have gone by unrecognised. There are some things you read about, like the Queen boarding a commuter train to King’s Lynn. Other things you have to experience. All this leads me to think of another very surprising scene - must think more about that one for my next post.
