LONDON'S CROWDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23222, 21 June 1937, Page 16

LONDON'S CROWDS

MILLIONS OF SIGHTSEERS THREE TREMENDOUS DAYS DECORATIONS AND FLOODLIGHTS (From Our Own Correspondent) (By' Air Maili LONDON, May 19. Coronation decorations and the flood-lighting of famous buildings attracted some of the biggest crowds seen in London for years during Whitsun. From the Saturday until the Monday the streets were crowded, presenting amazing sights. Millions of people, Londoners and visitors, thronged the streets on the Saturday and brought traffic to a standstill even before the police plans to close certain thoroughfares could be put into force. For mile after mile it was the same sightpavements and roadways packed with humanity and gaily bedecked motor cars and taxicabs. In the streets where motor traffic could move it was almost impossible to find an empty taxicab. MASS OF PEOPLE

People overflowed from the West End and Hyde Park into the area round Buckingham Palace so that it was impossible to move. Whitehall and the Mall were one mass of people from end to end, so that it was only possible to move with the crowd. In spite of the fact that the King and Queen left for Windsor earlier in the day, the circle round the Victoria Memorial was packed with 10,000 people. Seventy thousand filled Trafalgar Square and the base of Nelson's Column. A few stray motor cars were stranded in the crowds, unable to move one way or the other.

All traffic was stopped from entering the square from the Temple in the west and Southampton row in the north. Led by 100 singing on the plinth, the great crowd took up the choruses. There were tumultuous scenes when Queen Mary drove from Marlborough House on a tour of the illuminations. Nearly 50 police were needed to clear a way for her car'in many places. On the Sunday night, the eve of Bank Holiday, London experienced even greater crowds. Enormous throngs, exceeding even those of Coronation Day, packed the floodlit streets and parks, forcing the police to stop all wheeled traffic threequarters of an hour earlier than had been intended. From 10 p.m. onwards police cars, equipped with loud-speakers, drove through the streets, urging people not to miss their last trains home, and long queues formed at tube stations and tram stops. POLICE CONTROL STATIONS Large forces of police were hurriedly sent to the stations to control the crowds. Although the trains ran an hour later than usual, thousands of people had to spend the night in the stations and streets waiting for the early morning services to begin. Women and children slept on billiard tables in hotels, and scores camped in the stands on the Coronation route. Earlier in the evening a crowd of 10,000 people broke through the police cordon outside Marlborough House and surrounded Queen Mary's car, cheering enthusiastically.

1000 EVERY THREE MINUTES On Bank Holidav night it was the same tale. Just before 9 o clock people went westwards through Admiralty Arch at 1000 every three minutes. Stands on the south side of the Mall were as full as for the Coronation. Whitehall—the way to the Abbey—was a river of people. When the first soft rays of floodlight shone on Buckingham Palace there were already 30,000 onlookers. After an hour it was calculated that 1,000,000 had passed through St. James's Park. The palace crowd sang the National Anthem and, gave loud cheers, although the King and Queen were not in residence. Eros's statue at Piccadilly Circus became a temporary lost property office. Every few minutes, through loud speakers, a voice would announce: "Will Mr So-and-So. who was lost by his wife in Regent street (or wherever it was), please meet her at Eros? " THOUSANDS AT ABBEY

Westminster Abbey was the great magnet for sightseers. On the Monday the charge for admission to see the Abbey in its Coronation setting was reduced to Is, and a line of people were waiting for admission two hours before the doors were opened at 10 a.m. By that hour the waiting queue had come to extend down Great Smith street and through Dean's Yard, and numbered more than 5000 people. By midday more than 6000 people had passed through, and the queue outside was growing continually. At 630 p.m.—an hour and a-half before the Abbey closed—the long line of waiting people still extended into Dean's Yard. The visitors to the Abbey during the day totalled 20,853, and the Abbey received from them £ 1042 13s. With the total of £ 1946 10s on the Saturday—the 10s day—it has now received nearly £3OOO. a portion of which will be allocated to charities.

The great parks resembled an enormous fair-ground, and-even the grass in St. James's Park surrendered to the invasion. People, many of whom had probably never visited London before, sprawled happily over the forbidden lawns and sat within an inch or two of the tulips, returning home, no doubt, in the grateful belief that such liberty was always so. Those sightseers who had been up since the Coronation, when they took flunkeys at Buckingham Palace windows for foreign potentates, were to be seen explaining to newcomers that the Mall was Regent street and Oxford Circus Piccadilly. Patriarchal constables explained to queues of lost explorers that the quickest route from St. James's Palace to Trafalgar Square did not lie past the Marble Arch (about two miles away), or that the statue of Boadicea was not intended to represent Queen Victoria. The most incongruous sight of all was the permanent residents, hurrying to the cover of their homes like embarrassed curios.

Sixteen special trains to Euston and 24 to St. Pancras brought 20,000 people to those two stations in one day. The L.M.S. Railway reported that the number of peonle coming to London from the north was the largest ever known on a Whit Monday. The record figure of 4500 vehicles passing a given point in an hour was reported from Staines bridge. London's underground railways carried 20,000,000 people in Coronation week.

AT WINDSOR Windsor followed, and equalled, London in demonstrations of loyalty to the King and Queen, who spent the week-end at Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park. Twice they motored to Windsor Castle with the two Princesses. In the morning they attended service in St. George'.? Chapel. A great crowd surged round their car as they left the deanery later.

People ran beside it and in front of it, and several times the chauffeur had to stop." At each stop the crowd swarmed closer round the car cheering and crying " God Save the King!" Eventually police and guardsmen cleared the way, ' In the afternoon the royal party received a tremendous reception firm a crowd of 30,000 who were visiting the castle. They spent about an hour in the castle gardens.