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Tom and Edith Mason had been waiting for over two hours. Both were 77 years old but they didn't seem to mind having to stand for so long. At the moment all they could see was the backs of busby headed guardsman who had been standing there for just as long. They were near to St Paul's Cathedral and had been told the Queen would stop there.
“Do you remember the first time we saw her” Edith asked Tom? “Oh yes”, said her husband, “we were just 18 then and she was a year younger. She looked so young”. “We were courting too”, said Edith.
Now, they had been married for 57 years. They always took the opportunity to see their Queen whenever she made an appearance in London. Until recently there was no other way for them to know how she looked
“I've read she won't be getting out of the coach at St Paul's”, Edith added.
“Oh you and those stupid stories you get in that journal you buy each day. Just think if you saved that halfpenny it costs we could probably have an extra loaf of bread each week”
“Maybe, but I like to read about what is going on. Just think there are some folk living outside London who may never have seen the Queen at all”
“I thought you said they had some photographs in that newspaper. Anyhow this will be the fourth time we have seen her”
Tom and Edith had seen Victoria at her coronation on 28 June 1838. They had been standing outside the new home the Queen would live in called Buckingham Place and so they had actually seen her twice that day as she had taken a circular route from home and back.
Then, thirteen years later, they had been in Hyde Park when the Queen and her husband had opened the Great Exhibition on May 1st 1851. It had cost them £1 for the day and they had used money that Tom's father had left to them when he died. They spent the whole day wandering around and thought they saw the great author Charles Dickens, or so someone next to them said as they had no idea what he looked like. Edith had actually spent a bit more money as she had used one of the new pay toilets. They had both thought that the building in which the exhibition was held, known as the Crystal Palace, was amazing. It had so much glass.
They had closed their tailors shop in Houndsditch for the day and the only other time it had ever been closed, except on a Sunday, was on June 21st 1887 when they had seen the great procession which had celebrated Victoria's golden jubilee.
That was a Tuesday and so was today.
Suddenly there was a great noise among the crowd and soon the Queen's open carriage came into view. It stopped where both Tom and Edith could see outside the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. There was then an open-air service just as the Daily Mail, the journal that Edith had been buying every day since it began in May last year, had said.
“Told you so”, said Edith, squeezing her husband's hand.
“Shh”, he whispered. Then continued,”she does look a bit tired doesn't she”.
“Well she's about your age”, said his wife, “and you always fall asleep straight after dinner every night”.
Here is Richard reading the story to you.
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