Andy’s 1953 invitation to a Coronation Party and that simple truth ............. never throw anything away

I don’t remember Coronation Day.

To be fair I was only four but all those stories of going round to watch it on a neighbour’s telly of the street parties and the weeks of pre coronation expectation are nowhere in my memories.

So instead I fall back on the old grainy BBC TV coverage along with the slick colour footage from Pathe News and try to get a sense of what it was like.

We saved nothing from the events or if we did they were lost long ago in the house move which took us from Lausanne Road to Well Hall.

But by chance my friend Andy Robertson still has his school Coronation Party invitation.

Similar ones would no doubt have made been made for Edmund Waller and countless schools across the country.

And in its way it is as important a piece of that day as anything associated with the day.

More so because it will bring with it a shedful of memories for Andy.

It’s just a pity that for me the day was a blank.

Still it points to that simple observation that you should never throw anything away, you never know when someone might want to write about.

Picture; Coronation Street party invitation, 1953, from the collection of Andy Robertson