Cover of the day 24 April 2019 - The Queen

[Michael Dobbs]

Earlier today I listened to "The Reunion" on Radio 4 with Sue MacGregor who brought together five of the six Maids of Honour who attended the young Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey on the day of her coronation on 2 June 1953.  In the programme there was newsreel recordings which included mention of the Commonwealth troops who attended the Coronation and in particular of a chef cooking for troops from Pakistan.  This reminded me that I do have a couple of postcards of the Coronation Camps set up to accommodate the British and Commonwealth troops involved in the Coronation.

It also reminded me that the Queen's birthday was only three days ago, on 21 April, when she reached the age of 94.

The picture of the Queen is from a coronation leaflet and the postcard shows FPO 969 which was used at Pirbright Camp, Woking in Surrey.  This was a permanent Army camp and during the Coronation was used as the concentration and dispersal area for all Commonwealth troops (from Southern Rhodesia, Pakistan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon and Gurkhas from Nepal) involved in the Coronation.