DID you watch the Queen’s funeral on TV or listen to the coverage on radio? Perhaps you downloaded it, streamed it, went to a Glasgow cinema to see it, or picked it up later on catch-up?
The multitude of ways to tune in sparked some memories for regular Times Past reader Dan Harris.
He said: “When I was watching the TV coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral parade, it brought back memories of the funerals of previous British monarchs. In particular, it made me think how technology has changed during my lifetime.
“King George V died on January 20, 1936. I would only have been four at that time, and I know our Glasgow tenement house in Maryhill did not have electricity.”
He added: “The Coronation of King George VI was held on May 12, 1937. Radio had been invented, but the main source of information was newspapers.
“Cinema-goers, including children at matinees, would be kept up to date by the newsreel reports. I still remember seeing newsreel reports about the Spanish Civil War showing British civilians who had formed the International Brigade to fight Franco. One of the men who ‘lived up oor close’, was one of them.
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“Glasgow Corporation even introduced trams known as the Coronation trams. Very posh.
“We didn’t have electricity at the beginning of his reign, so most of the radios were powered by ‘accumulators’ - thick, acid filled, square glass jars with two terminals. When their power was low, we went to the local radio retailer and exchanged the accumulator for a fully charged one.”
When electricity was installed in Dan’s house in 1938, he remembers his mother bought a radiogram.
“Most of the neighbours living up our close came to see this modern wonder which had a gramophone that didn’t need winding up,” smiles Dan.
“When King George VI died in February 1952, I heard the news on a radio in the factory in which I was serving my apprenticeship.
“Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation was held on June 2, 1953. This Coronation was televised and my mother purchased a TV to watch it. The neighbours turned up again.”
Dan took part in the Coronation Parade in Berlin as part of his National Service.
“It wasn’t until the early 1960s that my wife Marion and I had a TV,” he said. “In those days the TV technology was primitive. Most of us rented a TV at that time because the valves needed to be replaced quite often. The TVs then were bulky, filled with valves and other components. Not like the modern slim ones at all.
“I wonder what new advances will be made in digital technology during King Charles’ reign?”
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