A joyful Graces Road street party revived Coronation traditions, proving neighbours, conversation and a well-timed soaking never go out of style, as Jane Common reports
June Treacy missed the last street party on Graces Road by a matter of days, being born a fortnight after Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953:
“I remember my mum talking about the Coronation street party,” she says. “Sandwiches, bunting, gossip…”
So, June wasn’t going to miss the “Coronation” street party held 73 years later to celebrate – well, the joy of living on one of Camberwell’s most pleasant streets. And it’s a joy
June has been experiencing daily as she’s lived there her whole life, with one move from her childhood house to a flat a few doors up.
As befits the queen of Graces, June was sitting on her throne – a fold-up chair – at 2.30pm, when the party officially opened. Bunting hung between lamp posts and three
gazebos set up under the Graces Road street sign offered music, buffet and booze. As word of the fiesta spread, people from the surrounding streets responded to the siren call of an
ice bucket filled with bottles of beer during a heatwave.
There was something quaint about the children racing and playing hopscotch on the street, weaving their bicycles through a series of cones, unhindered by cars – the street had been closed, by order of the council, since 9.30am.
In 1953, the South London Observer invited readers to write up reviews of their street Coronation parties and send them in for a special supplement – citizen journalism in its infancy. I can’t find a report of the Graces Road effort in the British Newspaper Archive so we will need to rely on June’s testimony from inside the womb. But certainly, Camberwell was Coronation crazy – deluged by requests for trestle tables and chairs the council threw up its hands, declared it “could not meet all the applications” and refused to provide any at all. No such problems at Gracetonbury – Bestway
International Christian Centre on Graces Mews kindly provided.
Back in 1953, undaunted by the curmudgeonly council, Dowlas Street partied. “There was a bonfire and it made quite sure that the party spirit was not damped by the chilly weather which did not interfere with the street’s firework display,” the unnamed Observer correspondent writes. “For the children there was also a roundabout – and there were a few rides for the grown-ups too. A piano and a band in the street made music for dancing when all the racing in the street was over … The street was floodlit. Children were given a parcel to take home, with a souvenir mug and a
medallion, a stick of rock, sweets and fruit.”
Edith Atkins invited entertainer Bob Hope to the children’s party she organised in Lomond Grove (not as preposterous a suggestion as it might appear – he was born in Eltham and regular visitor to Clubland, a pioneering youth club on Camberwell Road that helped underprivileged children).
Ivanhoe Road had a torchlight procession and Love Walk had fancy dress with prizes handed out by the mayor.
“Several of the women of Hollington Street got on to their knees and scrubbed the road surface before the Coronation celebrations,” the Observer reported. This is poignant – Hollington, with its sparkling surface, is now one of London’s lost streets, razed to make way for the Wyndham Estate.
Coronation cakes were the pride of every street party, and quite the creations given wartime sugar rationing was only just coming to an end. Vicarage Road rustled up a three-tiered red, white and blue affair while the bakers of Havil Street piped out the new queen’s face in icing.
No rationing at Gracetonbury – instead the residents all joined in to offer a dazzling spread with dishes such as Chaneti’s widely acclaimed Jamaican jerk chicken, tabbouleh, tuna pasta, homemade falafel and green leafy salads with cheese and biscuits for afters.
Then came Gracetonbury’s headliner – a fire engine arrived, the firefighters unleashed the industrial hoses, and children ran into the fountains of cold water looping down the road.
The adults soon followed – a communal dousing in 31-degree heat. Bliss.
I missed the Camberwell Community Choir and the DJ set as I was chatting with June, Mavis (another long-time Graces resident) and Sarah, a retired nurse who’s recently moved to
Wilson Road. And that, surely, is the street party spirit that endures from Coronation days – having a good old natter with the neighbours.
“I talked to someone I’ve only ever known to wave at,” June says. “And even though Mavis and I have lived on the same street for so long, we’ve never really met before.
So, it brought everyone together.
“I loved it. Did it make up for missing the Coronation street party by two weeks? Definitely.”
