Articles

As spring slips away and we look to early summer, the nights lengthen and, unbelievably, June will see the longest day.

I love this time of year. The shop becomes fi lled with the perfume of summer fl owers: gorgeous peonies, delphiniums, larkspur and blowsy hydrangeas. This is going to be a colourful summer in more ways than one; red, white and blue, I think, might dominate.

With the Olympic Games and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, I hope and am sure that fl ags and bunting will be everywhere. We certainly will be decorating the shop and at home, my house and garden will be proudly fl ying the fl ags. Like lots of places, my village is holding a traditional Jubilee Party. Sadly, as it shows how old I am, I can remember the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 quite vividly.

We lived in a very little village and in a tiny cottage. Unbelievably, no-one had a television as they were quite rare nearly 60 years ago. Out of the blue, my grandparents gave us a television set, a tiny screen in a huge wooden case, black and white of course, so my mum and dad invited the whole village to watch the Coronation.

The furniture was put outside. The children were sat on the fl oor all squashed together
with the adults standing behind to watch the grainy, black and white images and to listen to the commentary of Richard Dimbleby on the screen. The atmosphere was electric! Firstly, I had never seen so many people in our cottage and, secondly, hardly anyone knew someone who owned a television and yet here we were in front of one, in my own house watching the start of a new era!

One of the farmers cleared a barn, fi lled it with bales of straw to sit on and decorated it with bunting. We had the best ho-down ever! Even though rationing from The War had not
yet ended, everyone in the village made an effort to put on a magical spread. Let us hope that with all of the gloom and doom around at the moment, even if it is for one weekend only, it will lift the spirits of the country.

As for the Olympics, I am not in any way sport minded but the opportunity is there for the
country to show the World that we are the best at organising and running a great event and
everyone of us should takes this opportunity to show some pride and wave the fl ag for Britain.

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