Coronation Read Online Free Page A

seven o’clock that morning the engine of the Coronation Special snaked its way into St Pancras Station, where it came to a halt, sighing steam and panting as though out of breath from the trip’s exertions. London that morning was enveloped in a chill, grey drizzle, though the real and memorable Coronation Day downpour had not yet commenced in earnest. A bitter wind whipped the flags and bunting on the buildings and set the gay banners strung across the streets dancing an early-morning tarantella.
    The Clagg family emerging from the station kept close together, for never before had they found themselves in such a welter of hurrying humanity, cars, taxis and buses.
    Further greeting their astonished and excited eyes were the scrawled placards of the news-vendors: ‘Queen’s Day! Everest conquered! Hillary reaches Top.’
    ‘What’s Everest, Dad?’ Johnny Clagg asked. Anything conquered was in his domain.
    ‘A mountain,’ replied his father. ‘The highest mountain in the world. Someone has climbed it,’ and bought a paper.
    Johnny’s interest cooled at once. Mountains and mountain-climbing were not his dish unless one took them by storm in the face of devastating enemy fire. But Will Clagg, dipping into the front-page news, felt the thrill of pride and an oddly kindred feeling for a man named Hillary who had accomplished the feat with such pat and extraordinary timing. Obviously he had made a do-or-die effort for his Queen to present her with this hitherto unclimbed peak as a gift for her Coronation Day. Well, he, Will Clagg, could climb no mountains, but he could bring his family to London for her. And there they all were.
    He had the simple good sense to ask a policeman about buses and produced the tickets, which the constable examined with respect and admiration. It seemed, according to the officer, that there was no problem at all; a No. 73 bus, that one right over there, would take them all the way, travelling down Tottenham Court Road into Oxford Street and thence down Park Lane and round Hyde Park Corner. He was not sure whether the buses would still be running through that area, but they should not have too far to walk and at any rate there would be plenty of police to direct them to their proper destination.
    In spite of the drizzle and the damp, their first glimpse of London that early morning fulfilled every expectation. As they bowled down Oxford Street there were ‘Ohs’ and ‘Ahs’ and ‘Look there!’ and ‘Oh, Daddy, see that?’ or ‘Oh, Mummy, isn’t it beautiful?’ when they passed beneath triumphal archways in gold and blue, topped with the Royal Arms, or rode by shop fronts draped from top to bottom with red, white and blue bunting with colourful pennants and streamers or decked out with rich, armorial banners.
    Selfridge’s alone was worth coming far to see, emblazoned and bedecked with flags and heraldry. The streets packed with crowds were a sight in themselves, and as they proceeded down Park Lane their bus sometimes was blocked by the swarms of people endlessly streaming in the direction of Hyde Park Corner before the barrier gates were shut. When the bus was stopped the whispering susurration and shuffling of their feet could be heard, for inner London was a silent city that day.
    The vehicle on which they were travelling managed to be one of the last permitted near the area of Wellington Place, and halted at St George’s Hospital on the corner of Knightsbridge. The bus conductor, who had been alerted to the destination of the Clagg family, tapped Will on the shoulder and said, ‘Your stop, sir. Go straight along down past the ’orspital if you can make your way, and you’ll come to Wellington Crescent.’ And he added, ‘You ought to have a good view.’
    They dismounted and were engulfed at once in a tumultuous ocean of humanity, and Clagg understood what the bus conductor had meant by saying, ‘If you can make your way.’ For here were thousands upon thousands of people