From getting grounded by her 21ft train that was so heavy she could barely walk to balancing the 'very unwieldy' Crown on her head, Her Majesty looks back over her big day for new BBC documentary, The Coronation
THE Queen reveals her crown was so heavy she feared her neck would break as she gives a rare insight into her coronation.
She also says her intricately embroidered dress with its 21ft train was so weighty she was barely able to walk.
She adds: “Yes, fortunately my father and I have about the same sort of shaped head.
“But once you put it on it stays. I mean it just remains on.
“And you can’t look down to read the speech, you have to take the speech up.
“Because if you did your neck would break, it would fall off.
“So there are some disadvantages to crowns but otherwise they’re quite important things.”
The Queen does not give interviews but agreed to appear in the documentary to be aired on Sunday.
She watches footage of the occasion with presenter Alastair Bruce.
HER Majesty said her journey from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey in a four-ton, gold-plated, horse-drawn carriage was “horrible”.
She said: “It’s not meant for travelling in at all. I mean, it’s only sprung on leather. Yes, not very comfortable.
“It can only go at a walking pace. The horses couldn’t possibly go any faster. It’s so heavy.”
He was forbidden from asking questions but the pair are heard in conversation about the ceremony which took place in Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.
The Queen, who was 27 at the time, wore a dress embroidered in silk with pearls and gold and silver bullion thread and had a 21ft train.
She says: “Well, I remember one moment when I was going against the pile of the carpet and I couldn’t move at all.
“Yes, they hadn’t thought of that.”
In the programme the Queen also views the St Edward Crown, which she has worn only at the coronation.
Towards the end of the ceremony, it was replaced by the Imperial State Crown, which she wears for the State Opening of Parliament.
The monarch, 91, jokes that the pearls on the Imperial State Crown “don’t look very happy”.
She says: “They were meant to be Queen Elizabeth’s earrings (Elizabeth I). But they’re not very happy now.
“They don’t look very happy now. Most pearls like to be sort of living creatures so they’ve just been out, hanging out here for years, it’s rather sad. So they don’t look very happy.”
THE coronation may have been a serious occasion — but it was child’s play for Prince Charles and Princess Anne.
Her Majesty was shown footage of her children Charles, then aged four, and Anne, then two, above centre, running underneath the huge train of her dress.
Presenter Alastair Bruce says it looks “such fun for the children”. But Her Majesty replies: “Not what they’re meant to do.”
Around 8,000 people crammed into Westminster Abbey to watch the ceremony.
Her Majesty said: “It was so full, that it rather takes away the height of it.”
Laughing, she adds: “I mean, the trouble is that pearls are sort of live things and they need warming.”
The Imperial State Crown was altered and made smaller to look more feminine.
The Queen says: “You see, it’s much smaller, isn’t it? I mean, it was, it was the same height.
“You know, it would have been up to about there when my father wore it. Yes. Very unwieldy.”
The crown also has a large, red ruby which Henry V had worn at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 with a feather stuck in it.
Her Majesty said: “It’s, it’s fun to see, I think. Well, the idea that his plume was put into the stone.
“For his, on his helmet. Bit rash, but that was the sort of thing they did I suppose in those days.”
Royal commentator Alastair, 57, said the programme worked well despite the ban on asking questions.
He added: “She was unbelievably generous to me by making me feel very relaxed and she has the most delightful sense of humour.”
MAID of honour Lady Anne Glenconner was also interviewed for the programme — and tells how she got the giggles after one of them tripped.
Lady Anne, then known as Lady Anne Coke, says: “That’s Jane Stewart, she tripped, she was rather embarrassed.
“Look at the Queen smiling, we’re all smiling. I’ve got the giggles behind Jane, there I am, laughing.”
But things were more serious when it came to the ceremony itself — and what it means to the Queen.
Her Majesty called it the “beginning of one’s life as the sovereign”.
She said: “It’s a sort of pageant of chivalry and old fashioned way of doing things, I think really. But it’s quite interesting to have it, you know, done again.
“I mean, I’ve seen one, one coronation, I’ve been recipient in the other. Which is pretty remarkable.”
