LOSE YOURSELF IN 1953

MEANWHILE, ON TV… 2 June 1953 was quite a day for the morale of a country still trying to recover from WW2. Not only did The Times carry the scoop that a British expedition had conquered Mount Everest, with Edmund Hillary (actually from New Zealand) and Tenzing Norgay (Nepalese) reaching the summit, but it was also the coronation day of Queen Elizabeth II. The one-day ceremony was 14 months in preparation, costing around £1.57m – the equivalent today of just over £46m. Around three million spectators gathered in London, but 27m more watched the event on newly-bought or rented television sets. It’s estimated that an average of 17 people crowded around every tiny TV screen in the UK to watch the BBC broadcast. Nearer 277m watched the film worldwide.

The Matchbox brand was launched in July, bringing happiness to British kids over the following decades. The toy vehicles were the brainchild of John W ‘Jack’ Odell, Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith, with the latter two having set up Lesney Products as an industrial die-casting company in 1947. Production of die-cast models started in 1948. However, in 1953, Odell designed a tiny road roller for his daughter, Annie, that could fit into a matchbox. Legend has it that he did so because her school only allowed pupils to bring in toys that would fit in such a container, although a competing myth has it that it was an attempt to stop her bringing home spiders and bugs in boxes. Whatever the truth, the reaction of Annie’s classmates convinced Lesney to commercially introduce miniature models packaged in replica matchboxes.