Coronation Day 1953

I have just been reading (with some degree of difficulty) letters to the Radio Times from people describing where they were on Coronation Day 1953.  I know where I was.  I was on a little local Spanish train on my way to Barcelona  A little old lady wanted to know why I wasn't in England.   She took off her hat and as if she was placing a crown on my head kept repeating  "Elisabetta,  Elisabetta" as she lifted it up and down.
Why was I there?  Don and I had read a travel article in the Sunday Times by Elizabeth Nicholas about the Costa Brava in Northern Spain.  She said the best time to go was late May before it got too hot.  So off we went.  I was expecting our first child at the time.  We went by train through France stay ing a couple of nights in Paris.  We ended up in a tiny fishing village called San Feliu des Guixoles.  (I may not have spelt that right, it was a long time ago)  At that time no one had heard of high rise hotels.  There was nothing there but a few fishermen's houses, a Fonda which was where we were staying, two or three shops which were the front room of peoples' houses and a cork factory.   Small steam trains carried loads of tree trunks from cork forests in land to be made into corks for wine bottles.  The last train let off steam about 100 yards from our little guest house, a sort of pub, at 11.30 p.m. and the first train did the same at 5.30 a.m.   We did not need an alarm clock.
We were treated like Royalty and though the menu was limited it was very good.  The only other people staying there were workers from the factory.  We were embarassed to see that we were given rather better food than the others.  I suppose we were paying more.
The British were trusted.  On the way to the beach I saw abasket outside a shop that I thought I would buy but the shopkeeper could not change my note.  I said I would come back the next day with the right money.  She insisted that I took the basket and paid for it next time I was passing!
We took a bus to Palafrugel and while waiting in the bus station for a bus back the whole village took a walk round the bus station to see these strangers!  They had never seen English people before.  Don said he felt as though he had two heads.  We were a novelty.
We did see the coronation.  When we got back home to London we watched the whole thing ata cinema in Penge.