Toward the Big Day

"THE QUEEN TRIES ON HER DRESS!" cried a newspaper headline. "EXCITEMENT IN THE AIR!" exclaimed another. Britons by the thousands clustered around the entrances to Westminster Abbey where, in a few days, the second Elizabeth will be crowned. On three successive days, the smiling young Queen, patient, graceful and composed through all the furor, turned up at the Abbey with a 2-shilling coronation guide in her hand for rehearsals of the ceremony.

On the Mall and along the entire six-mile route of the coronation procession, Londoners and gawk-eyed visitors cheered London's bright new look. For months, the old city had looked as untidily unattractive as a dowager in a wrapper, curlers and mudpack. Statues were boarded up, the handsome old clubs in St. James and Pall Mall were defaced with iron scaffoldings, half of Westminster Square lay awash in cold rows of unpainted platforms and stands. But as if on signal last week, the curlers and mudpack came off, and London glowed with color and excitement. The official coronation decorations, designed by Sir Hugh Casson (architect of the Festival of Britain), were conceived with two objects in mind--to be regal (for the solemn occasion), yet gay (for the youth of the new Queen). Tiny roses glowed with plastic radiance from lampposts along St. James's, huge plumed brass helmets gave swagger to others in old Piccadilly, and the famed statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus was encased in a huge, airy golden cage topped by a crown. There was even a mechanical nightingale in Berkeley Square (they tried a real one, but he would not sing). Everything gleamed with fresh color.

Buoyantly, Britons made final preparations for the dawning of their second Elizabethan Age:

P:Coronation day remembrances were ready to be handed out. Some of them: a gift of up to two ounces of candy for every school-age child in the British Isles; "a coronation propelling pencil" for every schoolchild in London--some $174,000 worth of pencils in all; a check for 2 guineas ($5.88) for every baby born in Birmingham on coronation day, a free drink of whisky for every father and free nylons for every mother of a coronation day baby in Baldock, Hertfordshire.

P:Overseas royalty began trickling in. Among the first: Paramount Chief Mwanawina II of Barotseland, representing all tribal chiefs of Northern Rhodesia. Outfitted with a replica of the claw-hammered coat and gold-striped trousers worn by his father for the coronation of Edward VII, the chief made the first 300 miles of the trip to London by barge, the rest by Constellation. Also arriving: Queen Salote Tupou of the Pacific Island protectorate of Tonga, one of the three reigning queens in the world (the others: Britain's Elizabeth, the Netherlands' Juliana), and definitely the largest (6 ft. 3 in., 280 lbs.). Having left the heaviest crown in the world back home in Tonga, she was undecided what kind of hat to wear.

P:Appalled by the weight of clothing and paraphernalia which Elizabeth must bear during the long ceremony (some 30 lbs., the equivalent, they said, of full kit and arms for a British soldier), testers hung the same weight on a London actress for a four-hour practice session. Reported a doctor at the end: swollen ankles, madly beating pulse, spots before the eyes.

P:Despite stern censure from the Church of Scotland Temperance Committee, brewers distributed double-strength beer specially made and mellowed for the coronation. But they indignantly turned down a Laborite's suggestion in the House of Commons that they stand every pub customer in the country six pints on the house on coronation day. "It's not practical," said the Brewers' Council.

P:Experienced ox-roasters were hard to come by after years of meat rationing, but here & there villages found oldtimers who remembered from coronations past how to skewer a beast and cook him whole, Tudor style, on the town common.

P:Nearly 100 horses were stabled in Hyde Park to learn calmness and good manners for the hectic procession (sample lesson: soldiers clashed metal tubs and pots together to accustom the animals to sudden noise), and be available for refresher canters for admirals and air marshals assigned to ride in the parade.

P:Malta became vexed when its Prime Minister was assigned a place with representatives of colonies, instead of in Westminster Abbey with the other Commonwealth Prime Ministers. After the Maltese Assembly voted to cancel all coronation festivities on the island, and Maltese cinema audiences began booing newsreel pictures of the Queen and Philip, Prime Minister Churchill set things aright by assuring Malta's Prime Minister a place with the other P.M.s.

P:A fervent complaint of the late King George VI was attended to: the flattened, ironshod wheels of the Royal State Coach were rounded off and fitted with solid rubber tires. After his own coronation day ride in 1937, the King vowed that no heir of his should be subjected to a similar experience.

P:At least a couple of U.S. contributions figured importantly in the proceedings. The R.A.F. announced that when R.A.F. Jet Squadron 74 whips over Buckingham Palace in a flypast honoring the newly crowned Queen, it will be led by U.S. Air Force Major George W. Milholland, and include three other American flyers on temporary duty with the R.A.F. Another U.S. offering, an ode to Queen Elizabeth by one Palmer H. Hjelle of Minnesota, was, however, politely declined. Sample verse:

May she who captains England's ship tonight Steer it serenely to the ports of light! And spew through peaceful commerce and aplomb More issue from Britain's yet resourceful womb!

P:Coronation officials estimated that the whole show would cost the government -L-1,573,000 ($5,500,000), but that more than -L-600,000 would be regained in the sale of seats. Brewers estimated that the tax on extra coronation day beer sales would be enough to pay all coronation costs and send a surplus to the Exchequer. The economy-minded coronation committee announced that all of the steel and 85% of the timber used in grandstands and decorations would be reusable, and no drain on Britain's 300,000-houses-a-year building program.

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