From face-to-face meetings to watching the coronation, British army pensioners share their memories of Queen Elizabeth in the run up to her Platinum Jubilee
"A number of families went to a neighbour's house, the only neighbour in the street who had a television. And we were all crammed into their front room, literally shoulder to shoulder, the men were all dressed in their shirts and ties, the ladies in their best gowns," Judge, now 74, said.
At London's Royal Hospital, a retirement and nursing home for some 300 British army veterans, several of its inhabitants, known as the Chelsea Pensioners, fondly recall the coronation, or being in the queen's presence. "There were actually five of us in the line when Her Majesty was brought up ... for us to be introduced to her and I was third in line," Judge said.Chelsea Pensioner Ray Pearson, 85, reacts as he talks about Britain's Queen Elizabeth, as she marks 70 years on the throne this year, at Royal Hospital Chelsea, in London, Britain, January 26, 2022. Picture taken on January 26, 2022. REUTERS/Paul Childs" she came to me and it was like a light being switched on and shining on you.
"All the neighbours came in and it was tea and cakes all around and everybody was grouping around this little nine inch television," Pearson said.Aged 95, Elizabeth is also the world's current oldest and longest-reigning monarch. In September 2015, she broke her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria's record as the longest-reigning monarch in British history, saying the historical moment was "not one to which I have ever aspired".
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