Bells ring again for wedding that lit up Britain
Congratulations to Royal couple
IT WAS just before 11.30am on November 20, 1947, that the bells of St Margaret’s Church at Westminster Abbey rang out to hail the arrival of the Irish State Coach containing the Princess Elizabeth, heir presumptive to the throne, and her father, George VI.
Inside the abbey, 2,000 heads turned.
Little more than two years after the cessation of hostilities, the pomp and ceremony stood as a symbol not only of Britain’s past but also its future in a post-war world.
This anniversary day, the bells will sound again in celebration of a marriage that has stood as a rock through seven turbulent decades of social change.
At 1pm, the abbey’s Company of Ringers will begin a peal of 5,070 sequences, the final 70 added to mark the platinum anniversary.
It will take a team of ten three hours and 20 minutes to complete.
Yet the wedding itself almost did not happen.
Though no-one doubted the suitability of the dashing Greek and Danish prince for the 21 year-old princess, the scale of the event was intensely debated, and but for the intervention of the Duke of Leeds, it may all have happened behind closed doors.
Prince Philip himself, newly ennobled as Baron Greenwich, Earl of Merioneth and Duke of Edinburgh but used to living frugally, believed that in a time of austerity, the public would accept nothing more than a private wedding at Windsor. But the 11th Duke of Leeds, the thricemarried John Francis Godolphin Osborne, inset, buoyed by a newspaper poll in which 86 per cent of readers had said that the wedding day should be the first post-war occasion on which to restore to Britain “the traditional gaiety of a gala public event”, dashed off a letter to the bride’s mother, Queen Elizabeth.
In a choice between austerity and traditional pageantry, he wrote, most people would prefer the latter.
Shortly thereafter, the designer Norman Hartnell was asked to submit sketches for a wedding dress. The one selected cost £1,200 and required 3,000 clothes coupons. Speculation about the design, he recalled, “became wild and almost hysterical”.
Rumours circulated that the silkworms used for the gown were of Italian or Japanese origin and therefore provided by “enemy” territories. In fact, they were from the Scottish firm of Winterthur in Dunfermline and came from Chinese silkworms at Lullingstone Castle.
Today, the dress, handembroidered with more than 10,000 pearls and crystals, and comprising a fitted bodice, heartshaped neckline with a scalloped edge and an intricate 13ft starpatterned train, is considered as “fresh and timeless” as when the princess walked up the aisle.
Jenny Swire, contributing fashion director at Wedding
Venues Magazine, said: “She looked absolutely beautiful on her wedding day. I can’t imagine that it could have been improved upon.
“She looked incredibly regal. She wasn’t Queen yet but she looked like a queen.”
The dress would later go on tour, attracting vast crowds in the textile centres of Bradford, Leeds and Huddersfield.
In 2007, it went on show again, for the summer opening of Buckingham Palace, and at a preview, the Queen saw it for what was believed to be the first time in years. Sir Hugh Roberts, the director of the Royal Collection at the time, said: “It must bring back many extraordinary memories of that day.” The ceremony itself, relayed via cinema newsreels to the public several days later, was a triumph. Winston Churchill summed it up as “a flash of colour on the hard road we travel”.
The anniversary is being marked today with an official range of souvenirs. The Royal Collection chinaware pieces, commissioned by Buckingham Palace, feature the Queen and Philip’s entwined monograms.
She looked absolutely beautiful on her wedding day. Jenny Swire, contributing fashion director at Wedding Venues Magazine.
THE CONGRATULATIONS of the entire nation go to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh today as they celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary.
This is yet another extraordinary milestone for the longest-reigning monarch in British history and the longest-lived consort, and though it is the most personal of anniversaries for the Royal couple, it represents much more than that for Britain and the Commonwealth.
That is because the strength of their marriage over these seven decades is the bedrock on which the outstanding success of the Queen’s reign has been built. It has enabled the monarchy to adapt to changing times, to weather periods of difficulty, and remain the symbol of continuity and stability that lies at the heart of our nation.
And it is as a couple that the Queen and Prince Philip have forged the unique bond of affection between monarchy and people, across thousands of Royal visits greeted by cheering crowds who turned out to see them.
The affection in which they are held mirrors that shown on their wedding day, on November 20 1947, which brought a welcome splash of colour and good cheer to a Britain battered and exhausted by the Second World War.
Theirs has been a joint lifetime of service to the nation. Though, sensibly, the Queen has scaled back her public duties and Prince Philip retired from solo engagements earlier this year, the Royal couple continue to serve with all the enthusiasm and high regard for the people that they showed 70 years ago as young newlyweds.
There have been many occasions to celebrate the lives of the Queen and Prince Philip in recent years, notably the Diamond Jubilee and the anniversary of her becoming Britain’s longestserving monarch.
Today is another, and every good wish that goes to them is richly deserved.