This is one of over thirty films held with the YFA made by local filmmaker Mr Copley.  The quality of this lovely Kodachrome film shows that filming must have been a very keen hobby.  The Copley family have lived in Tickhill for generations, although many of his films are of holiday outside of Yorkshire.  One that is of Tickhill, and is older than this one, is Tickhill May Queen, featuring some wonderful maypole dancing that makes an interesting contrast with that seen here.  The film shows...

This is one of over thirty films held with the YFA made by local filmmaker Mr Copley.  The quality of this lovely Kodachrome film shows that filming must have been a very keen hobby.  The Copley family have lived in Tickhill for generations, although many of his films are of holiday outside of Yorkshire.  One that is of Tickhill, and is older than this one, is Tickhill May Queen, featuring some wonderful maypole dancing that makes an interesting contrast with that seen here.  The film shows some of the historic buildings in the village, such as the Buttercross monument, erected around 1776, and St. Mary's Church, dating back to the 15th century.  Also to be seen are many of the local shops at that time, including, F Clasby, butchers; the Millstone (now a restaurant); and a shop selling both cycles and TV sets – an odd combination today, but possibly not when TV sets were still a rarity.  Other local historic sites include the ruins of the 11th century Tickhill Castle, and the Cistercian Roche Abbey, founded in 1147. 

Tickhill and District Local History Society have posted a lengthy piece on the events that can be seen in this film.  This states that: “Weeks of planning had gone into Tickhill’s Coronation celebrations, which began on Coronation eve, Monday, June 1 with separate tea parties for seniors, infants and juniors and pre-school children, when everyone received commemorative mugs.” The events took place over several weeks, partly by design, partly due to bad weather.  The planned Coronation tableaux and procession was postponed until Saturday, June 20.  In the film we see the usual kind of activities that were common in these street parties – see Coronation Processions - Harrogate and London and the Context for that film.

What isn’t mentioned is the parade of cars right at the beginning of the film.  It will be noticed that one carries the Royal Standard.  Given that only vehicles carrying the King or Queen may fly this flag, and then only when they are present – the protocols on Royal flags are quite detailed – it can only be assumed that the car carried the Queen herself.  It is, however, odd that this isn’t mentioned on the website, as it must have been something of an event.  Nevertheless, some proof that this might indeed be the case can be found in an article in The Times, of the 28th October 1954, which notes that the Queen passed through Wombwell and Brampton Bierlow as they made their way from Barnsley to Rotherham, where an estimated 20,000 crowd awaited them.  This refers to a visit to South Yorkshire on the 27th – see Royal Visit to Sheffield, where, at about 3 minutes in, the Royal car entourage can be seen arriving at Sheffield Town Hall, looking remarkably like the one in this film, with the Royal car the same shade of dark red.  

The exact itinerary of the Queen for that day is hard to determine.  The Court Circular in the Times for 27th October  notes that the Queen will be visiting Barnsley in the morning, and then on to Rotherham and Hillsborough before taking the Royal train back in the evening (presumably the Royal car travelled back light).  Passing through Tickhill, which is east of Rotherham appears as an odd route for getting to Barnsley, but none of the Court Circulars published in the Times for the summers of 1952, ’53 or ’54 mention any other visits to Yorkshire.  It would make more sense had the Queen travelled up the A1 – then the major road going north: the old Great North Road – and came off at Bawtry.

In any case, the Queen and Duke were back in Yorkshire the next day (assuming they left at all), visiting Dewsbury, arriving by train.  The YFA has a film also of this day, The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visit Dewsbury 28/10/1954, made by the Dewsbury Amateur Cine Society.  The visit also took in Batley, Morley and Bradford.  Apparently, as the Queen entered Batley, a six year old girl, Carolyn Lyons of Ambler Street, fell in front of the slow moving car and was injured – though not seriously.

The year of the coronation, 1953, may well mark the highest point there has ever been, or will be, in the popularity of the Monarchy.  The German born journalist Sebastian Haffner, writing in that year, states that: “It is doubtful whether at any time in the last thousand years the British Monarchy has occupied such an enormous place in the thoughts and emotions of British citizens as at the present moment.  The Britain of the early ‘fifties is not simply loyally monarchist; it is monarchy-conscious to a degree which calls for some special explanation.”  (cited in Nairn),  See the Context for Fearby Silver Jubilee for more on the popularity of the Monarchy.  At the end of his book, when it was first written in 1988, Nairn speculates that Britain might break up with southern Britain joining Europe, thereby undermining the monarchy.  But the present plight of the European Union suggests rather that the British Monarchy still has plenty of steam left.  As part of the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations of 2002, Tickhill Countryside Group purchased 4 acres of land to establish a wood of broadleaved English trees, called ‘Jubilee Wood’.

References

Tom Nairn, The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy, revised edition, Verso, 2011.
Tickhill and District Local History Society
Copley's of England