TUESDAY June 2, 1953, dawned overcast and wet. I was up earlier than usual on what was to be one of the most memorable days of my life thus far.
I was just 14 years old and a pupil at Sutton County Grammar School. For reasons I can't now remember I had been selected as one of the fortunate few from the school who were to travel up to London to join the crowds lining the route of the Coronation procession.
Clad in a raincoat and armed with a packed lunch and my Kodak Brownie box camera I set off for school. All I remember about the journey to London was that we were looked after by Mr Trubshaw, our history master.
His teaching style was fairly laidback, but he must have been made of sterner stuff because we arrived at our destination safe and sound.
We joined 30,000 other school children who had places specially reserved for them along Victoria Embankment, and waited with restrained excitement for the action to begin. We were to see the Queen on her way to Westminster Abbey, her route from Buckingham Palace taking her down the Mall, across Trafalgar Square, down Northumberland Avenue, along Victoria Embankment, and round Parliament Square.
In view of the fact that she was the star of the show it was entirely appropriate that the Queen should come near the end of the procession.
We were spared the thousands of marching soldiers who took part in the two-and-a-half-mile long homeward procession from the Abbey back to the Palace, but there was still a seemingly endless succession of limousines and landaus carrying the great and the good trundling past for an hour or more. I didn't bother with my camera until the carriages carrying lesser members of the Royal Family appeared. I must have learnt the trick from somewhere or another of holding it above my head upside down, looking up into the viewfinder to locate the image being photographed, from a vantage point above the heads of those in front of me.
Nowadays, with a digital camera, it would be much easier, with the added advantage that you can see straightaway if the image is OK. But in those days you had no idea how good the image was until the (black and white) film was processed and prints were made.
So it was all a bit hit and miss. But I'd had enough practice before the glittering gold state coach carrying the young Queen and Prince Philip hove into view to get what I hoped was a satisfactory shot of them as they passed. And then it was all over.
In truth, I can't remember much about the journey home, except that at some stage we heard by word of mouth that Mount Everest had been climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing.
It was several days before I was able to see the results of my photographic efforts. To my relief – and youthful pride – my shot of the Queen and Prince Philip was as good as could have been expected, given the overcast conditions, and over the years it has provided me with tangible evidence that "I was there".
And that might have been that, were it not for the fact that many years later, when, as joint executor for my wife's uncle, I was sorting through his effects and came across a stash of newspapers and magazines he had hoarded recording notable events in his lifetime – including the Coronation.
As my wife will confirm, I have a weakness for old newspapers, so I took the liberty of adding them to my collection – yellowing copies of the now defunct Evening News and The Star (who remembers them?), and still with us the Daily Mirror, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
To my amazement, closer inspection of the latter revealed that my surname featured in one of its headlines. Now that really is something to tell the grandchildren – and I will, if I can get a word in edgeways!
John Capon lives at Redstone Manor, Redhill, and is helping to organise celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Reigate and Redhill becoming a borough in 1863
