King’s coronation: Yorkshire residents remember the last time Britain crowned a monarch
As the celebrations of the King and Queen’s coronation continue, one man remembers the last time Britain marked a moment like this.
John Reid from Settle, a small market town in North Yorkshire, has vivid recollections of how a rural community came together for a parade that was part of a fortnight of celebrations in 1953.
As we walked through the town, the 79-year-old pointed out parts of the market square, beginning to paint a picture of a day that has stayed with him his whole life.
“It was all in the market square, hundreds of people, I think it brought all the community together. You never were really split up, no matter what denomination you were, what age you were, you were all brought together, and you all celebrated it, from youngsters right to grandparents age.”
As part of the pageant, he won first prize for his costume; dressing as an English nobleman. The reward was 10 shillings, which would be just under £18 in today’s currency.
“Nana Reid, my dad’s mum, made the costume out of any sort of material she had available and was suitable,” he recalled.
“I probably would have been encouraged to put it in my savings bank, it was a lot of money in 1953.”
For Helen and John Reid, preserving and protecting memories of previous coronations is important
For John and his wife Helen, preserving and protecting memories like those are important.
Before we strolled through Settle, the pair proudly showed me a collection of plastic wallets, filled with photographs and newspaper cuttings about events in the town 70 years ago to commemorate the late Elizabeth II being crowned.
“There are not a lot of people living locally who actually can remember these events,” said Helen, “so it’s nice to have it documented. I think it’s very important for the next generations to look back on.”
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
For John, a retired joiner, it’s also a way to share his personal history.
While watching some archive footage from the parade captured on camera by Eddie Percy – who was a local plumber and amateur filmmaker – he picked out and names a number of people enjoying the festivities. Many of those people were his relatives.
“Sadly a lot of people aren’t with us any more, but when our family comes up, I can pass on information, what we did and what we were involved in.”
Read more:
King crowned by Archbishop of Canterbury in historic coronation
Eyewitness account from inside Westminster Abbey
Moments that mirrored Queen Elizabeth II’s ceremony
A banner first used in 1935 for the Golden Jubilee of George V, then during the reigns of George VI and the late Queen
In the nearby village of Langcliffe, there is also a long and well-documented history of celebrating royal occasions, with pictures dating back to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
At the heart of festivities will be a set of banners first used in 1935 for the Golden Jubilee of George V, then during the reigns of George VI and the late Queen.
One side of one of the banners is inscribed with the words “God save the King”, while the other side says, “God save the Queen”.
Kate Croll doesn’t think celebrations in 2023 will be as large as they were in the past
Kate Croll, who lives in Langcliffe, keeps them at her home, along with pictures and documents chronicling more than a century of history.
Talking about the banners, she said: “It must have been one of the Queen’s Jubilees when I first saw them, and I was blown away.”
“They’ve been well-used, there’s that continuity there. It’s nearly 90 years since they were made and here we are reusing them,” she said.
In both Langcliffe and Settle, there is a recognition that this time the events in both places will be smaller.
“Now I suspect, yes, we will celebrate, but it’s not going to be on the same scale, I’m afraid,” said Kate.
Langcliffe in 1953
“I think it’s a generation thing, a lot of my generation are looking forward to it very much, but it will a bit more low-key this time round.”
After the celebrations, Kate will turn her attention to finding a way to proudly display the pieces of history she has collected, with plans for an exhibition in the near future.
“I do think it’s absolutely vital,” she said. “For future generations, I think in the fullness of time, they will want to look back.
“To have those records is important, if previous generations hadn’t kept them, we wouldn’t have them to look back on now.”
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
Read more:
G7 summit ‘all about the Donald’ – analysis
Scrambled G7 agenda as leaders race to de-escalate Israel-Iran conflict
In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
Read more on grooming gangs:
What we do and don’t know from the data
A timeline of the scandal
Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike