"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Sunday 9 August 2015

HAVE A GREAT SUNDAY

Bob McRoberts has an Aurora commemorative pin. Nothing indicates the event. It has a crown on top.The  leaves on the town crest are dark red instead of green. It looks commemorative of a coronation. 

Queen Elizabeth's coronation was in 1953. I slept out on the sidewalk in Hyde Park near the Marble Arch the night before and  saw the whole procession. The golden coach they roll out for very special Royal occasions wobbles clumsily and noisily on wooden wheels.

Queen Salote of Tonga refused to have her carriage hood raised though it poured with rain throughout. She sat straight and tall with a great wide smile and greeted the crowds with a magnificent wave. Her royal head-dress was a tall feather that curled over at the end. Her beautiful face and brown shoulders glistened In the rain. 

The small man in an admiral's outfit who shared the carriage looked utterly miserable on the opposite seat. Winston Churchill was in the procession with every royal personage and dignitary in the known world. All the carriages but one had the hoods up. Like babies in their prams. 

King George's coronation was ,I think ,in 1935. So the pin could have commemorated either. It's very nice. 

The Empire Exhibition was in Glasgow in 1936. The Jubilee and the  Coronation were before.  I remember, on different occasions, a penny and a chocolate bar  being distributed because I was in school to receive both. So that was between 1932 and 36

The Royal Jubilee was within the period.  Every school child  in the  U.K. received a shiny new  penny  for the Coronation bearing  a profile of the new King's head. We spent it of course. 

For the Jubilee, we went to the pictures and watched the event and received a bar of chocolate with a dark red label . Now that I think of it ,two royal profiles with letters and numbers in gold between. That would have been King George V  and Queen Mary. Never knew she was German. Nobody thought much about that I guess. It was before the war. 

So Bob has a pin. He would like to know the history. 

Whatever the occasion , it was before 1960. If anyone out there has any recollection of the pin he would like to hear about it. Great- Grandmothers and great-Grand- dads are most likely the vintage If they are still around. 

Have a great Sunday.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well written.
I started out trying to figure out how come Bob had been given the pin.
And then found the Queen of Tonga.
Good luck with the detecting

Aurora stuff. said...

There was a large celebration honoring Aurora as the community highest in sales of War Bonds.

Could it be from that event?

The downtown.at the clocktower was adorned with flags and celebration.

We were tops in the Country and proud.