The Coronation

[tamborine]

We never owned a telly in 1953 to watch the coronation, did your family ?

[marval]

No. but we stayed with my granny and some of the adults went round to someone else's house to watch it.

[cupotee]

Sorry Tamborine I didn't see your post until now..so will bring my answer here.

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/ChatterBank/Question1248837.html

Yes we did have a TV

[Canary42]

No.

[chrissa1]

I can't remember. I was only 2.

[Grandma_Yiddo]

I wasn't born until 4 months later. My Mum said everyone went to my Grandma's because she had a set.

[masma]

My brother and I went to Grandad's, there were 9 kids in our family but only us two were allowed to go being the youngest. We were made to sit on the window seat and the tv was so tiny we could hardly see a thing! Not allowed to talk either....

[craft1948]

No we never had a TV until about 1956........it was a pay per view one where you put half-crowns into a slot.

[netibiza]

no mum and dad wanted all 6 of us to pass GCE's first, I was the youngest, didn't pass many! but we could visit a neighbour on Saturday night to watch Wagon Train.

[Ann]

No, we didn't have a TV until 1967!!!!

As I said on another thread, a week after the Coronation, we walked to the local cinema with the rest of our Primary School to see the full film of the Coronation, it was the first time I had seen a moving film.

[LoftyLottie]

My Dad bought a tele especially for the coronation. It had a 9" screen and a magnifier strapped to it. We were far from wealthy. It was possibly another 8 years until we had a fridge though. I was six and remember the coronation. I had lost my front teeth and had to wear a taffeta dress and a big bow in my hair to mark the occasion. We got a coronation silver spoon from school which I still have.

[tamborine]

Would it just have been middle or upper class that had TVs. We must have had a TV about 57ish coz I remember a donkey puppet dancing on a piano.

[LoftyLottie]

We were certainly not middle or upper class Tambo! We lived in a council flat in London.

[FredPuli43]

Yes, a 1936 model ! Well, it worked and had a really big screen; a whole twelve inches across the diagonals.

[FredPuli43]

tambo, your donkey was Muffin the mule, not a form of bestiality ( in spite of the theme song "I love Muffin, Muffin the mule") but a children's show presented by Annette Mills. She died young and a nation of children were in mourning. "

[Grandma_Yiddo]

Wasn't Larry The Lamb a friend of Muffin The Mule? Or am I mixing things up?

[FredPuli43]

If they were, Grandma, they kept the relationship secret. Muffin did have friends who appeared occasionally, but mostly they appeared in the books of stories about Muffin. One was a penguin called Mr Peregrine and one was an ostrich, I remember.

Larry the Lamb was on the wireless and voiced by Uncle Mac himself, I think.

[Supermike]

Yes we had a TV and being 9 at the time I found the whole thing very boring and would have much preferred being out playing football.

The pictures, as you may imagine, were very grainy and the screen very small. I do remember the miserable drizzly weather.

One highlight was the huge 20 stone Queen of Tonga who insistead in driving in an open top carraige in the rain. She smiled all of the time and waved to the crowds which made her very popular. Sitting opposite her and getting very wet was the exteremly thin Emporer of Ethiopia. The story goes that someone asked Noel Coward who was the thin man sitting opposite the Queen of Tonga and he replied "That's her lunch"

[horselady]

I was only 4 and we didn't get a TV til I was 7. I'm now trying to remember things about Larry the Lamb-he was with Denis the dachsund and a policeman came into it somewhere, I think the programme was called Toytown, but was it on radio or TV?

[LoftyLottie]

Radio, horselady. Definitely on the radio. They may have made a television version - but I can't remember one. Do you remember Educating Archie on the radio as well. A bit silly having a ventriloquist on the radio I suppose.

[emmie]

yes.