For a royal tour he would have his Rolls Royce shipped abroad so that he could travel in style. My father liked idiosyncratic arrivals and departures. My mother, my father and I (aged 14) had spent the night on our Dutch sailing barge, Vabel, moored on the Thames just above Westminster Bridge. Underneath, the subtitle reads The Form and Order of Service and the Music Sung in the Abbey Church of St Peter Westminster.

It’s the silence not the words that count.Īs I write, I have on my desk a book of 183 pages, bound in red Morocco leather and embossed in gold with a Royal Coat of Arms and the title Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The secret to good commentary is knowing when to keep silent, and letting the event speak for itself. I imagine myself sitting on the sofa beside the viewer, as though we are watching the event together, only speaking when there is something that needs explaining, and trying to curb my instinct to keep talking. Others try to prompt the viewer into an “appropriate” reaction, telling them that a particular moment is poignant or moving. There are many ways of commentating on state occasions.

Stoughton opera house county