Sheila Collins at the Peel Institute

NOT everyone managed to see the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in person, but many remember crowding around the television on that day in 1953.

Sheila Collins, 83, who grew up on St John Street, was a teenager when the Queen ascended to the throne.

She remembers her entire family gathering around the television her aunt had bought “just to see the coronation”.

“It was absolutely fascinating, it went on all day. She was beautiful – it was the closest I’d ever seen her. To see her there in the golden coach was breath­taking,” Ms Collins said.

The Queen’s coronation was the first to be broadcast live by the BBC to the British public.

The ceremony is widely credited with the rise of TV set ownership in the UK as sales soared in anticipation of the coverage.

Although the day of the coronation was “drizzly,” Ms Collins said Londoners “loved it anyway”, adding: “You could hear people singing from the pubs, and we sang a song that was very popular at the time: ‘In a golden coach, there’s a heart of gold / Driving through old London town’.”

Ms Collins said Queen Elizabeth II ascended to throne at a time of hope, after the Second World War had come to an end and the welfare state came into being. “She was like a beacon to all of us. It was a new Elizabethan age,” she said.

Martin Jones, former chairman of Highbury Fields Association, also remembers watching the coronation on television as a 16-year-old, adding: “I planned to go to the coronation… but the day before, my dog died. It was such a blow to me that I hadn’t got the heart.”

Instead the family gathered around the television.

“The televisions then were something like 15-inches wide,” he said. “It was in black-and-white, we were all grouped round five or six feet from the set to see what was going on.

“At that time even that was wonderful.”