Coronation Day, 1953

How many people here bought a TV set especially to watch the Coronation only to find less than three years later that they couldn't be used to watch ITV?

Ah, but on the day ITV started me Dad brought home a little brown box, stuck it on top of the telly, plugged it into the telly and with a bit turning of the wheels we had ITV.

Most people would have watched the Coronation on a Bush TV22 with a nine inch screen. It was the first affordable TV, being mass-produced with a moulded bakelite cabinet and is something of a style-icon of its era. Bush also sold a 12" version (TV24) but this had a wooden cabinet and was much more expensive as were most other brands. By the way you can often date old photographs by the aerials on the chimneys. Few people had TV at all before 1953. It was 1956 before ITV aerials were added and BBC2 aerials began to appear in 1964.

This is me as Sabu the Elephant Boy, the photo was taken at a Coronation day street party help in Bulwer Road and Heathcote Street. I remember it well, great day and just in case you are wondering, I was entered into a fancy dress competition (not my every day attire). I remember being given a silver plated spoon and a Coronation mug. Colin

You sure stirred my memory Dutchman, I remember the so-called set box but it took some tuning to get it to work, I think the big problem was the home made aerial my brother and dad tried to make, I can see them now, they must have had some sort of construction plans to build the Yargi type aerial. Anyway the very first thing I heard followed by a fuzzy image was "is it a bird or is it a plane, faster than a speeding bullet etc." I could see Superman flying. Next day at school, "we've got ITV". Colin.

Hi all. My wife was sorting some of her keepsakes to throw away and she showed me this plus other things that someone may not have known about Coventry. Every schoolchild in Coventry was given this book by the first Lord Mayor of Coventry, HBW Cresswell, in 1953 - by Richard Dimbleby, of our Queen Elizabeth II to commemorate her Coronation. The Queen at 10 years old, showing her love of horses.

I still have this book.

Don't remember receiving one, never seen it before

Nor me!

1953 Coronation. Arbury Avenue and Windmill Rd School/Longford Park

My family, the Mainwarings, lived at 137 Beake Avenue from about 1953. We lived next door to a widow named Mrs Moore. I know we were there for the Coronation as we had a street party and the kids all had wonderful outfits made by their mum and dads. Mine was a 'fabulous' crinoline made of waxed bread paper, topped by a chef's toque also made of waxed paper. A small basket of pretend loaves completed the outfit. A boy across the road had a wonderful Grenadier Guard outfit. All the mums knitted or sewed so creating outfits showed off their skills at a time when there wasn't much money to spare.

A very young Mick Strong receiving his mug and 5/- piece on Coronation Day 1953. I still have them 67 years later.

We had our street party only a hundred or so yards away, Linda, in Whaleys Croft. I was five then and obviously we've all moved on from those days of make do and mend, but there was a marvellous sense of community. We had a street outing every year to the seaside, really exciting for us kids.

I used to play up in Whaleys Croft - always something going on over there. Do you remember the Lallys who pretty much ran the croft? Did you go to the Saturday morning pictures over at the church (St Nicholas)?

We had a monster of a TV, a Philips projection set in the early 50s. They were a disaster - you had to pull the curtains and view it in a darkened room. Even then the picture was dull and lacked sharpness, as it was projected onto a ground glass screen. It was forever going wrong and spent a lot of time back in the workshop. The tubes had a very short life as they were being worked very hard. As you say, it only worked on BBC. So a year or two later we got an Alba, that not only got both the TV channels, it also had a vhf radio built in so we could listen to Sing Something Simple on Sunday evening.