The Spectator’s notes | 2 June 2012

‘Chilly day with frequent showers,’ begins my grandfather’s entry for Tuesday 2 June 1953, the day of the present Queen’s Coronation. He hoisted the Union flag in one of his fields, where the bonfire was being prepared, and walked up to a disused chapel where the whole Sussex village watched the Coronation on something most had not seen before — television; ‘a true marvel’, he wrote. After lunch, he went to the green by the Royal Oak pub where he had been asked to plant a new young oak for the occasion. His diary has an abbreviation of his speech. It started with the Restoration (prompted by the name Royal Oak), and moved on to George III, in whose reign was born ‘Qu. Victoria whom I often saw and knew the cadence of her voice & witnessed the splendours of her Diamond Jubilee, my one qualification for my job.