To mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s ascension to the throne in
1952, here is the leader that appeared sixty years ago on our front cover. It was written under the editorship of Wilson Harris, who had been in the position nearly 20 years.
Queen and Nation, 15 February 1952
The slow days are dragging their sad length along to the climax, when the mortal remains of King George VI will be laid, where so many of his forbears have preceded him, in the historic St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. The tributes have been paid; the set orations have been delivered; the papers, after their manner, have seen to it that every lineament of grief on the countenances of the King’s closest kin should be displayed before the eyes of tens of millions; the King’s subjects have filed in muted and moving farewell past the catafalque in the Great Hall of Westminster, and
will watch him on Friday escorted along the streets he so often travelled to the train that bears him out of his capital for ever.
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