So, feeling very tired, we climbed down from the stands surrounding Queen Victoria’s memorial in front of Buckingham Palace and headed for our homes near the Elephant & Castle in South London.

Gerry & I, both within days of our 13th birthdays, had just watched the never-to-be-forgotten spectacle of the Coronation Procession of King George the 6th in May 1937 with its mounted and marching troops from all parts of the Commonwealth, the carriages full of Royalty and the general splendour of the whole affair.

Our adventure began the previous evening when, sitting on a kerb in a street in a working class area of South London, we decided to ask our mums if we could watch the procession the next day. There followed an hour or so of discussion and hectic activity by both mothers making sandwiches, filling Thermos flasks and packing carrier bags whilst we two adventurers tried to snatch some sleep before leaving at 11pm to travel by Underground train from the Elephant & Castle to Trafalgar Square. Sleep, though, would not come; we were too excited.

The scene which met us in Trafalgar Square is etched in my memory like so many more happenings during the following 16 hours. The Square, and all the roads leading into it, were full of people enjoying themselves, drunk and sober alike. There were decorations and coloured lights everywhere and, in the windows of shipping companies, the lighted models of great luxury liners. The whole atmosphere was one of enjoyment and excitement.

After an hour or so wandering around we settled, with others, on the pavement in Whitehall to spend the remainder of the night dozing, talking and being entertained by buskers. Dawn came, sandwiches were eaten, road traffic stopped and policemen changed shifts. Policemen in those days were much respected by schoolboys to whom they seemed 10 feet tall with an ability to administer a clip round the ear which hurt.  On the other hand, they were helpful when needed and displayed a sense of humour in the right situations. Coronation Day was one of those situations, they joked with the crowd and turned a deaf ear and blind eye when required.

City of Westminster road sweepers with their brushes and brooms swept up and carted away the litter and horse droppings (there were many working horses on London streets in those days) and sanded the road. Any further droppings from police horses etc during the next few hours were swept up quickly to the cheers of the crowd.

Guardsmen in their bearskins and sailors wearing white belts and gaiters were marched into position to line the route of the procession. We were, being young boys, in the forefront of the crowd and a sailor, in his ceremonial uniform was posted in front of us and, several times during the next few hours, he very quickly took a packet of cigarettes from inside his jacket and held it behind him; whereupon one of the men in the crowd extracted a cigarette from the packet and lit it for him. The sailor returned the packet to inside his jacket and then, at intervals, he turned quickly around without moving his feet or rifle, took a couple of quick puffs of the cigarette held out for him and turned back. This was repeated several times until the cigarette was finished.

We heard the bands in the distance.  Tension mounted as we traced their approach by the rising intensity of the  cheering. What a spectacular sight it was with troops marching and riding down Whitehall on their way to Westminster Abbey. Red uniforms, blue uniforms, green uniforms, khaki uniforms; peaked caps, bearskins, scout hats, turbans, pill-box hats etc.; rifles, swords and lances; English regiments, Scottish regiments,  Welsh regiments, Irish regiments, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, South Africans, East Africans, West Africans, Indians etc. Then came the carriages with their mounted escorts and we cheered them all.

When the last had passed we wandered into St. James’s Park to finish our sandwiches and drinks and lie on the grass for an hour or so before watching the procession return. It was difficult, however, to get back into Whitehall again in the afternoon because, by then, the crowds had increased and large wooden gates restricted exit from the park into the Mall. We stayed on the park side of the wooden gate nearest to Buckingham Palace for about half an hour looking, and feeling, rather miserable watching people, who had tickets for the stands in the Mall, going through the gate. Then a kindly police inspector beckoned us to follow him. He led us across the Mall to Queen Victoria’s statue where, without a word being spoken by him and only a “Thank You” from us, we scrambled up the scaffolding and found the best view of anyone in London to see the whole procession return to Buckingham Palace. To we two 13 year olds it was magnificent although now such events are brought into our living rooms through television but that procession must have been one of the last, if not the last, which included so many mounted troops from all over the Commonwealth and from regiments which no longer exist today.  (I cannot compare it with Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation Procession in 1953 because, on that day, I was, as the second-in-command of an RAF Regiment squadron, taking part in a parade to mark the occasion at RAF Kasfareet in Egypt). And so, the Coronation Procession over, it was agreed - Lets go home.

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Home to me was a two bedroom, one living room ground floor flat in a street off the Walworth Road  near the Elephant & Castle where I lived with my parents, four sisters and two brothers. By modern financial and material standards we were poor, but there was a wealth of love existing between us which has continued for over 65 years, my youngest sister having been born in 1934.

Until the late 1930s our lighting at home, as at school and in the street, was by gas lamp, which gave a much softer light than electricity. Cooking at home was on a solid fuel range in the living room/kitchen or by gas on a stove in the scullery which was a stone floored room with a door to the living room, another door to the toilet and a third door to the backyard. In addition to the gas stove it housed a brick built solid fuel boiler in which the washing was boiled every Monday morning and a Belfast sink with the one and only cold water tap in the flat.  Two further items in there were the mangle, used to squeeze out the water from the wet washing, and a portable galvanised bath.  There was no hot water system, neither were there any cupboards or working surfaces in the scullery. There was no bathroom or handbasin, the cold water tap in the scullery served all purposes.

Mum, who died when she was 80 years old, was Victorian in her method of raising children; there was a strict dividing line between boys and girls and she always had a cane hanging from the mantleshelf. Dad, who was 96 when he died, had been a book-binder and he worked in a factory near London Bridge railway station. Occasionally I would meet him when he finished work at mid-day on Saturdays and he would take me inside the factory. I loved the smell of the workshops and the feel of the leather bound covers which were his speciality. He was a superb craftsman and did not retire until he was 76 and, when he did retire, the factory were unable to replace him and so lost contracts.

We would walk home together through the back doubles, as he would never use public transport over distances he could walk.  After lunch, and if Millwall football team had a home game, we would walk to their ground the “Den”, which is located in the heart of the old dockland south of the river. Once inside the ground we lads  were always helped to wriggle our way through the standing spectators to the front and, even if the game was a poor one, the “wits” in the crowd would ensure an enjoyable afternoon.  Home for a cooked tea, always a speciality on Saturdays.

With no space in the two bedrooms for play, or to do homework, all activities, including food preparation and eating took place in the living room/kitchen on its multi-purpose kitchen table. In the evenings, it was not unusual for my father to be eating his evening meal at one end of the table, my mother ironing or mixing a cake at the other end with me in the middle doing my homework. Not only were there nine of us in the family but we also had daily visits from aunts and uncles who would sit and talk whilst mum prepared the next meal, or did the ironing using a flat iron heated on the coal range. Pots of tea were being made throughout the day and mum would bake four dozen small cakes at a time. So, with the living room always occupied, we children, when possible, tended to play outside in the street with our friends.

There was little traffic in the local side streets. Of the eighty or so flats on each side of our street only three or four residents owned cars and most tradesmen used horses and carts or push barrows. So we were able to play cricket, using a lamp post as a wicket or a wicket chalked on a wall, and football using coats as goal posts. When (not if) a window was broken by an ill judged swipe or kick, or when a policeman appeared, there was a mad scramble to pick up coats etc. and disappear into the flats.

Hopscotch, marbles, roller skating, whip and top, conkers, knocking down cigarette cards and, for girls, skipping were all favourite street games. So was “Knocking Down Ginger”, the name given to tying a number of door knockers together with  string in such a way that a tug on the string would make all the knockers knock on their front doors with we culprits in hiding.

Working horses were still a part of everyday life in the 1930s and they pulled carts or vans for the coalman, dustman, baker, greengrocer, removal men and the railway delivery services on their door-to-door deliveries. In addition horses were used in pairs or in fours to pull heavy loads from the docks and breweries etc. Hand carts were pushed by many including the milkmen and the man who sold chopped kindling wood for lighting coal fires; the ice-cream sellers rode tricycles; the knife and scissors grinder used his bicycle pedals to power his grindstone which was attached to a wheel and the muffin seller carried a baker’s tray on his head. There were also members of the Salvation Army, who held outdoor services, with their bands, on street corners and made house to house collections.

A railway bridge crossed the upper end of our street and beneath the arches on one side of the road was a coal depot. On the other side were the stables for the horses which pulled the coal carts. Fairly frequently the coal depot side of the bridge caught fire and we were treated to the sight and sound of a fire appliance roaring down the street.

Our local coalman lived in a second floor flat on the opposite side of the street to us and his wife spent most of her day sitting on a chair by an open window resting on a cushion on the window sill. Anyone passing was hailed by her and a loud conversation ensued until her unfortunate passer-by got away. She was also in a good position to keep an eye on her husband and his horse - a shout from her would halt any animal.

Trams were also part of the normal scene on the main roads, charging - yes charging- along the centre of the road with bells clanging and, with their large iron bumpers front & rear, woe-be-tide anything which did not scurry out of their way. The upper decks would sway from side to side as they moved at speed but children’s fares were cheap. We would ride from the Elephant & Castle to Abbey Wood for 1d and it was in those woods that I smoked my first cigarette (a Woodbine) when I was 14.