IF I am honest my abiding memories of the 1953 Coronation, when I was eight, are not of an elegant and dignified beyond her years young woman who was about to carry the weight of Empire on her shoulders.

They are, in no particular order, our first television set, biblical rain and a towering figure from the South Seas island of Tonga, who took the Coronation procession by storm.

Today, thanks to professional rugby, Tongans are familiar figures in the UK, but not back then. So who was this very large and joyful person who insisted on travelling in an open horse drawn carriage when nearly everyone else had the hood up.

It was, as Richard Dimbleby, the doyen of TV commentators, told us, Queen Salote of Tonga and she was having a ball. All 6ft 3ins of her. Until that day very few, if any beyond diplomatic circles, had heard of Queen Salote Tupou III, but come evening she was a star. Waving, smiling, bare armed and happy in the rain. How the crowds loved her.

In fact Salote had been Queen of Tonga since 1918 and when someone remarked to one of her entourage how brave his monarch had been to defy the downpour, the reply came: “Tonga is a tropical island. We are used to rain. This is not rain as we know it.”

However there was a flipside to the story, because in Tongan culture it is not appropriate to copy your hosts. So when the British took cover, Queen Salote was honour bound not to. Which was just hard luck on her companion in the carriage, the Sultan of Kelantan, who was soaked to the skin.

All this was viewed through our first television set, a little 14 inch screen, black and white Ferguson on a table in the dining room. The Coronation gave a great boost to the sale of TVs, although like many new things, they were not that reliable.

Indeed ours broke down so often the repair man Mr Wyatt, a balding, earnest chap from St John’s, who always arrived in a shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a tank top sweater, was at our house so often he almost became part of the family.

He’d rummage in the back of the set, every so often look over the top and say “Is the picture back yet”, carry on rummaging and at last reception was restored. When he’d sit down and have a cup of tea. Thankfully on the day of the Coronation the little Fergie behaved itself.

On the other hand, Joan Smith, who now lives in Upton upon Severn but then lived in Manchester, watched the 1953 Coronation on what was virtually a wide screen telly back then – all 17 inches of it!

Writing to the British Polio Fellowship with her memories of the day, she said: “I was 12 years old at the time and we all went round to my grandmother’s house because she had bought a television especially for the Coronation. I remember it looked very smart because it was in a cabinet with doors on the front. I think I must have only seen a television once before. I was very excited.”

Meanwhile my brother Tony, aged only two at the time, has an altogether different memory of June 2, 1953. One quite remarkable for a baby. He recalls that Mum and Dad, who dressed up in their best clothes for the occasion, concocted an alcoholic fizz for some friends who came round and the debate was whether or not they should let him have any, as their second baby seemed rather keen to wet his own head.

Eventually after taking the cherry out of the glass in case he choked, Tony was allowed a sip and enjoyed it. Fortunately the breathalyser did not exist or he could have been found drunk in charge of a pram and his successful career in the police would have been kiboshed before it had started.

Primary schools in particular made a very big thing of the ’53 Coronation and at St Stephen’s in Worcester every child was given a Coronation mug. Keith Rayner remembers: “On the way home after school we thought it would be a good idea to chink the mugs together against each other. Surprise, surprise, mine shattered! So I had to go home and tell my parents why I hadn’t got one.”

What with boozy two-year-olds, broken souvenirs and 14-inch black and white TVs, 1953 was a very different world.