A KEEN photographer captured the rehearsal parade for the Queen’s Coronation after making a 30-mile round-trip to London on her bicycle as a teenager.
June Croxford, who now lives in The Magpies, Epping Green, cycled from her childhood home in Edmonton to The Mall when she was 15.
“I remember cycling up there on my lavender bicycle,” she said. “It was the only one I ever had.
“I just took it upon myself to cycle up there with my camera on my own. It must’ve taken me some time, but there was not so much traffic on the road then.
“I went and plonked myself on one of the seats and when the rehearsal came along, I just took photos of the coaches and the horses. It was wonderful.”
She was working in an office in Edmonton at the time and said she was confident enough to decide to make the trip on her own.
“I just thought it would be interesting and it was the sort of thing I would do,” she added.
“I used to do a lot of amateur dramatics and helped dig out the seating for an open-air theatre in Passingford Bridge when I was a teenager.”
She also bought portraits of the Royal Family that were published the year of the coronation and last showed her collection during a Golden Jubilee celebration at All Saints Church in Epping Upland.
“I’m glad I’ve still got it, because you don’t normally keep things like that,” she added.
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