Worries and wonder for the young royals
Perhaps this fantastic spectacle of colour, pageantry and extreme religiosity will become impossible in the muted tones and modes of the modern world.
Whatever the future holds, George played his part with aplomb – while siblings Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis sat securely sandwiched between Mum and Dad. Charlotte, dressed in an ivory silk crepe dress and cape, embroidered with ivory satin embroidery of rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock motifs, seemed an eight-year-old oasis of calm.
On her tied-back hair she wore an Alexander Mcqueen headpiece similar to that worn by her mum.
Louis, five, was on tip-top behaviour. Of course the occasional yawn slipped through but that Archbish can go on a bit. And he wasn’t alone – I saw one person enter a particularly deep meditative state during the Byzantine chanting. The guests in the nave were a fabulous mix of service people, volunteers and celebrities. And no assigned seating plan on my side of the Abbey made for some interesting seating permutations.
International megastar Lionel Richie, who’s probably not sat second row of anywhere since the late 1970s, had to peer between two large mother-of-the-bride hats in front of him.
Ant and Dec were perched next to each other just across the way from Chris Whitty, David Dimbleby and lovely Jay Blades from The Repair Shop.
They were joined by some of Britain’s most defining characters: Professor Mcgonagall, M, Nanny Mcphee and Patsy from Ab Fab.
And between them the real characters who define the British nation – those who cooked food for the needy during Covid, those who work with the homeless or help young people from underprivileged backgrounds. I squeezed into a chair so close to the pulpit I could smell Rishi Sunak’s freshly polished shoes when he stepped up to do the reading.
How relieved he and wife Akshata Murthy must have been to arrive apart from the procession of former Prime Ministers. First came John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown with their wives. They may be older and greyer but they were moving at pace to create a healthy distance down the aisle ahead of the calamity crew of the past 13 years: perma-tanned David Cameron, orange-hatted
Alison and Katy
Theresa May, still sniggering Boris Johnson, and another orange hat covering Liz Truss. (Surely one orange hat is quite enough for any coronation?)
Still, at least Liz Truss’ husband had the good grace to look mortified at getting a walk-on role at the Coronation in return for his wife’s catastrophic seven-week reign.
Shortly before the service began, a vision in pink plonked into the seat behind me, gushing: “Hi, I’m Katy.”
Multi-award-winning Katy Perry, one of the biggest-selling artists ever, who’s at today’s Coronation Concert, was six rows back from the aisle, squished between a pillar and a pulpit. But her verdict at the end: “Awesome, I loved it.”
Well, the royals do know a thing or two about putting on a show.