Column by historian Roger Bingham of Ackenthwaite:

THE coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953 was treated by her subjects at home and in what was still called the British Empire and Commonwealth as an opportunity for the largest post-war celebrations.

In Westmorland, every village tried to outdo their neighbours in a range of concerts, plays, games, fairs and exhibitions. Although food was still rationed, there were parties for young and old and it was noted that the tea urns at Kendal’s 'Old Folks Treat' had first been used for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. Every house seemed to be enveloped in bunting and there were prizes for the most sumptuous displays.

As it was long before supermarkets, 14 small shops entered Milnthorpe’s competition ‘for the best decorated retail premises’. In Kendal, a Romney Road resident managed to fashion his privet hedge into the topiary 'E II R'.

Despite ‘disappointing weather’, sports and fancy dress parades went ahead, perhaps more in a Dunkirk spirit of ‘we can take it’ than of bright optimism.

Then, as night fell, the clouds lifted in time for lighting the coronation beacons. From Heversham Head, where the fire was lit by the youngest boy Scout, Roger Bingham (who made a speech), a twinkling array of other beacons was discerned from down the Bay to Barrow, up into Lakeland and across into Yorkshire; and no-one minded the drizzle.