The Queen's Toffees

I suppose I should mention a few encounters with the Queen as everybody else has - like the time she almost ran us over whilst crossing London Bridge ( or was it Waterloo Bridge? ) . My first glimpse of her was back in 1953 on a very tiny screen on a very big television in a neighbours house in Corringham, Essex. It was Coronation Day and the blurry pictures seemed quite magical at the time - flickering in the corner of a dark room with lots of other neighbours peering at 405 lines transmitted live from Westminster Abbey. Later there was a street party and I won a prize of tin of toffees for my Chelsea Pensioner's outfit that my mother had made from an old red coat and an old hat fashioned from a cut down trilby. The addition of some badges that my father had aquired in the Grenadier Guards set the whole ensemble off! On the lid of the tin of toffees was her majesty of course. I don't have the tin, or the outfit or the medals- just this photo of me on the back steps of the flat we lived in at the time with my mum looking out of the window.