It's fifty years ago today since the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey. But today is also a far more important anniversary - it's fifty years ago today since television was born. Sure, television had been invented more than 25 years earlier and the BBC had been broadcasting television programmes since 1936, but Coronation Day 1953 was the day that propelled television to the centre of British shared culture, a position it has yet to relinquish.
The Coronation was the event that television had been waiting for. An event that everybody in the country wanted to see, but that only a few thousand had ever experienced before. Radio was still king in the early fifties because television sets were quite rare. They cost about £50, an enormous amount of money in those days, and many people decided to build their own set from a kit instead. They would only get a tiny 9-inch flickery black and white picture, but it would all be worth it just to be able to see the young Queen Elizabeth and all the previously-secret ceremonial of the Coronation.
Three million people lined the streets of London that day to watch the Coronation Procession. It rained, of course. The BBC staged an ambitious outsidebroadcast, bigger and longer than anything they had ever attempted before. Back at home, 27 million people were watching the event live on television. That's well over half of the UK population at the time and an astonishing number given that there were only 2½ million sets in the entire country. Wherever there was a television set, family, friends and neighbours all gathered together to watch. For many, it was their first ever experience of watching television. It was also the first time ever that the television audience for a national event had exceeded that listening in on the radio. Television was crowned alongside the Queen that day.
Nowadays we all take television for granted. That screen in the corner of the room can transport us anywhere at any time, without us even noticing what a technological marvel it all is. World events, documentaries, news, drama, reality television, soap operas - there's so much more to choose from than there ever was in 1953. We can even watch the Royal Family washing their dirty laundry in public 24 hours a day if we so choose. The shared experience of TV programmes like Big Brother and EastEnders gives us all something to talk about and, in a very real way, binds the nation together. Millions of people will be watching Coronation Street tonight, but I wonder how many of them will remember the Coronation treat that made it all possible, fifty years ago today.
