|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||
Publisher Marketing:
As Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip celebrate their 60 years of marriage, the
National Archives presents a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the royal
wedding of 1947. The magnificence of the occasion captured the nation's
imagination and brought thousands on to the streets to cheer. Its Norman
Hartnell dresses and 400lb wedding cake (extravagances frowned on in some
quarters) offered a temporary escape from a ration-book economy and the worries
of an unstable world. Using the unparalleled original material in The National
Archives, Elizabeth and Philip charts the round-the-clock efforts of those-high
and low-who ensured the event's success. Fascinating nuggets and individual
anecdotes abound from the official who proposed using fireworks (given all the
'surplus explosive chemicals' left over from the war!) to civil servants
appalled at the poor-quality tourist tat, or the police who-politely but firmly-demanded their
own beer tent to keep up morale on the day. There was royal protocol to consider
too- how would the Foreign Office deal with congratulations from Japan, with
which Britain was still technically at war, or from Albania's former king, now
persona non grata in his homeland? And would it be necessary to protect all that
pageantry and glamour from that most British of problems, rain?
$18.55
Historic Costumes and How to Make Them$12.55 |
 |
Hats: A History of Fashion in Headwear$23.55 |
|
Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality |
