Longest to reign over them
Queen Elizabeth II's reign has seen the United Kingdom become a diverse, fragmented one
ON THE occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation on June 2nd 1953, a year and four months after she had become queen on the death of her father, 82 towns and villages in Britain roasted an ox—the Ministry of Food having loosened post-war food rationing rules only for places that could show they had a tradition of doing so on such occasions. Others gathered at street parties, crowded around new television sets in homes smelling of Bakelite and tobacco and strung bunting from buildings black with soot.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Longest to reign over them”
From the September 12th 2015 edition
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