Tag Archives: Duke of Edinburgh

It’s Wednesday and I can’t think of a title

12 Replies

Sorry I ‘ve been a bit erratic. I seem to have been very tired over the past few days and just haven’t got round to blogging. This isn’t much of an excuse, I know, because there isn’t a lot of  effort involved in typing a few hundred words, but it just seems to have defeated me. This, I suppose is a sign that I’m getting old. When I was a lad I’d think nothing of starting work at 6am and then working and carousing my way through the next eighteen or twenty hours. I had so much more energy…

Much less sense, but definitely much more energy.

I think I mentioned that we were hard at work putting Duke of Edinburgh coins and medallions on the internet. I’m not sure if I mentioned that I remarked to the boss that if my co-worker had been at work he would have been telling us off for a lack of good taste. And sure enough, when he returned to work and saw what we’d been selling, he did comment on our poor taste. It seems to be poor taste that is gently paying off, and it has certainly paid my wages for a week.  Most of it was already on and just needed “Duke of Edinburgh” or “Prince Philip” adding to the title. The medallion pictured in my last post is now on its way to Australia. A lot of people in Australia like royalty items. A lot, to be fair, probably favour a republic.  I’m easy either way, but if someone wants to buy something, I’m happy to sell it.

That, I think is enough for now. It’s going to end up around 300 words and that’s a good start. I don’t want to bury my readers under a deluge of invective about David Cameron, for instance, who is either slightly immoral or very, very stupid, with his lobbying activities. Looking at his track record, I actually favour very, very stupid. I made the mistake of watching Prime MInister’s Questions this morning, and the current incumbent, and his opposition opposite number gave me a great insight into the politics of the school yard and the way that two reputed heavyweight intellects become childish idiots when you give them a country to run.

I had a brainwave whilst watching them, and looking at the rest of the associated sycophants. It’s a pay per view game show combining Prime Minister’s Questions and the current fascination for big cats. If I say that the working title is “Release the Lions” , you can probably guess the rest.

I still haven’t touched on roadworks, builders and pharmacies. I may have to write a second post…

An Unusual Medallion and Some Reflections on Life

16 Replies

As we sorted through our stock yesterday, adding items relevant to the Duke of Edinburgh, we found this medallion. It is, according to the books, the only souvenir medallion issued for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Phillip Mountbatten.  The wedding, in 1947, came at a bad time for commemorative medals, as raw materials were in short supply and I assume people were thinking of other things.  In 1951, the Lesney company (later to be makers of the famous Matchbox range) nearly closed down because they were unable to get supplies of zinc, due to the needs of the Korean War. We also had bread and potato rationing in the years after the war due to bad harvests, neither of which had been rationed in the war.

A a further example of royal hand-me-downs, as mentioned in the above link. The famous Coronation coach model made by Lesney (a million selling souvenir) was originally designed as a commemorative for George VI and later remodelled after his death to become the Coronation coach model for the Queen. Cynicism in royal souvenirs has clearly existed for some time.

Royal Wedding Medallion 1947 Reverse

 

Royal Wedding Medallion 1947 Reverse

It’s not the most6 artistic medallion, but it does the job and shows a feature of many royal commemoratives, which persists to the present day – the Queen is depicted using a good likeness and the Duke is only identifiable as the Duke because he is next to his wife. I have other examples of this, but won’t bore you with them.

 

 

 

 

It appears that it wasn’t just me who thought the TV coverage hit the wrong note. I know it’s difficult but turning over both BBC channels to coverage of the Duke was, I feel, excessive. I thought that coverage of Diana’s demise was over the top, but it was at least unexpected, and it was news. Having said that, I have still not forgiven the British public for their great outpouring of grief for someone who, and I pick my words carefully, wasn’t really of much importance to most of us. It seems the BBC have probably overreacted because they were criticised for their lack of seriousness in dealing with the death of the Queen Mother.  I can’t remember what they did, so it was probably about right.

It’s an example of the way things have changed. In 1947 Britain still made things, These days we ship huge quantities of goods into the country from China. Plastic, in those days, was a wonder material. These days it’s held to be responsible for so much that is wrong with the way we live. In 1947 we produced a white metal medallion as a commemorative. Today, I am bracing myself for a deluge of low quality commemorative coins.

He has, it seems, left instructions for his funeral to be simple, which is pretty much what you would expect from a man who used to cook his own breakfast (in contrast to some of his bone-idle issue).