How has England changed in the 70 years between the coronations of the late queen and the current king? In Coronation Streets, England Then and Now, British citizens of a certain age look back on their childhoods in 1953 when a glittering ritual in distant Westminster offered a brief break from the day-to-day drudgery of the post-war world. Meat was still rationed. Bomb sites were common sights. Televisions were not. Those who could afford to buy them found their front rooms crammed with neighbours peering at nine-inch screens showing a colourful crown and a golden coach in various shades of grey. The parties that followed were often disrupted by rain and staged in streets lined with houses lacking amenities taken for granted in 2023.
For all the greyness of the early '50s, however, there are some colourful memories here from all over England.
This is the fourteenth book by Chris Arnot, a former national freelance journalist. Small Island by Little Train was published by the AA and shortlisted for the "outstanding travel-themed writing" awards. And Britain's Lost Cricket Festivals was shortlisted for the Cricket Book of the Year awards.
It was one of four of the Britain's Lost series that he wrote for Aurum. Britain's Lost Mines was heralded as "a gorgeous tribute to a whole world which has vanished" by Lee Hall, writer of Billy Elliot. And Britain's Cricket Grounds was heralded as "the best sports book of 2011" by Jim Holden in the Sunday Express.