It’s strange how you can always remember where you were when you first learn about a cataclysmic event. 9-11 being the most recent case, or 11-9 in the UK. There’s been other times, of course, JFK’s assassination being the most well recalled event up until the WTC affair.
But, I can actually remember what I was doing at this very hour 50 years ago to the day. I was 5 years old, school was over, and I was walking down Bradford Road in Farnworth, Lancashire, intent on playing tig with the big boys gang that was run by 6 year old Jimmy Robinson.
I knocked hard on Jimmy’s door. Silence. I knocked again. More silence. Rat-a-tat-tat! Are you coming out to play big boys? Silence again.
The door opened quite suddenly and I was faced with the awful sight of Jimmy’s father stood in the doorway, his face contorted with rage. Bugger Off! You shouldn’t be outside today! Go home!
I traipsed off despondently, dimly aware that I was in the wrong about something, I just didn’t know what. Shuffling back home, a neighbour caught sight of me through her window and also yelled at me to go home, what was going on I wondered? Fighting back the hot tears and choking on all this sudden rejection, I burst through our kitchen door where I found mum making tea for us all.
She smiled at me and asked me if people had been shouting at me to go home! Well, of course mum knew everything, she was always telling me that she could see around corners, and she was very old too, almost 29, so she was quite a wise old bird. She hugged me and I snuffled in a manly fashion, then she sat me down and explained to me what it was all about.
The King had died. The nation was in mourning. Starting immediately, I was to wear a black armband every time that I ventured outside. I was not to whistle, skip, run, shout, play, make a noise, laugh, smile or do anything that could be construed as being that I was not totally devastated at the nations tragedy. We were all in mourning. No comics, no sweets (they were still rationed anyway), no playing of my only 78rpm record ‘How much is that doggy in the window’, no anything other than a sombre and serious demeanour was acceptable.
A good 20 minutes must have passed before I asked if the mourning was over, but no, this was going to be heavy stuff for sometime yet.
At this point things get a little hazy. A few weeks passed by and the papers were now full of pictures of a pretty, smiling 25 year-old lady. This was our new Queen. She was officially to be known as Queen Elizabeth the Second, and we were all New Elizabethans. She wasn’t totally our Queen yet because she hadn’t been crowned, but soon we were going to have a coronation, and if I was good I would be able to see it as it happened. Yes, I was going to see the whole thing on something I had never even heard of back then, I was about to have my first viewing of a TELEVISION!
More later…..
Englishman
Truth exists;only falsehood has to be invented. -Georges Braque