Author Jennifer Ryan Answers Questions about The Queen's Coronation

Where did you first get the idea for The Queen’s Coronation?

During a conversation with my mother a few years ago, she started telling me about the time she danced down Beckenham High Street with her class in a procession for the new Queen’s Coronation. It was 1953, and my mother was 12 years old, delighted to have a new queen on the throne.

“Instead of all those dull old men, here was this beautiful young woman, someone we could relate to, someone we could imagine as kind, resourceful, and brave—or so we very much hoped. It made such a difference to us, made us feel like the world wasn’t run by older men who all looked the same and droned on in the same way. She was lighter, brighter, making us girls feel that we could be up there too, setting the scene for a new tomorrow.”

It immediately struck a chord with me, and when discussing new ideas with my publisher, I brought it up. The core idea of the novel is that the brave new queen inspires women to confront problems and stand up for themselves in the 1950s world that was dominated by men.

Who are the main three characters, and why did you want to make them all Buckingham Palace servants?

I wanted the three main characters to be servants to watch Elizabeth’s story playing out as she faces the hurdles of being a woman in a male-dominated domain. It would give us a good idea of palace life in the 1950s and the grip of tradition that advisors held over the young queen.

Caroline is an assistant dresser, working hard to support her family as her husband enjoys gambling a little too much. I wanted to show how unequal marriage was in the 1950s, how men controlled the house, the money, and the rules—how divorce was too expensive and problematic for most women to consider, how husbands could treat them like servants without any recriminations.

Miranda is a journalist from New York working undercover in the palace offices as she feeds information for her New York paper to print. In the bottom-pinching world of 1950s workplace, as a young widow, she finds it hard to get the men to take her seriously. Watching Queen Elizabeth at the top makes her feel perhaps it is a new era for women.

At just 18, Lucy arrives in London from the countryside desperate to get on the stage. She starts work as a laundry maid in the palace, but soon realizes how hard it is to find stardom in the big city. Taking advice from a handsome palace gentleman, she finds herself in a beauty pageant, playing a game where she doesn’t understand all the rules.

The characters’ stories interweave as they work together, live together, and become friends, helping each other see how bravery and stepping outside their comfort zone is needed.

Queen Elizabeth was a great inspiration to women. Why was this so needed in the 1950s?

It was a desperate time for women. During the war, they had enjoyed the freedom and independence that comes with work, often promoted to cover the managerial positions of the men on the front. Then, when the men came back, women were encouraged to go back into the home. Many women were only too happy to give up boring jobs and keep the home, bringing up their children. But for a number of women, it wasn’t as simple as that.

Around half of the women in Britain still worked, the poorer half, and these were also the women who were more likely to be stuck in abusive or coercive marriages. It was still not considered wrong for a husband to hit his wife—a collective veil was drawn across it, and if you heard a man shouting through the walls, you tried your best to ignore it. Women were expected to be beautiful and alluring, yet giving and yielding—a famous song of the era was “Got myself a living doll,” the idea being that a perfect woman is enduringly pretty, trim, and manipulatable.

Beneath the sheen of 50s magazines, there was a layer of casual prostitution, where women were “seduced” in exchange for gifts or money. It was the era of the beauty pageant, young women donned in bikinis to be judged like cattle. It was the era of underground strip clubs, of restaurants where the waitresses served more than just food. Prince Philip’s own “Thursday Lunch Club” is rumored to have plenty of girls on tap, and his equerry Mike Parker was finally caught out having an affair with one of the waitresses.

The queen’s transition from princess to monarch was a hurdle, and I saw how many women would have faced big hurdles in their lives, and I wanted to mirror that.

What are you working on next?

I am very excited about my new novel, but since I am still in the beginning stages I won’t give too much away. Please join my emailing list as there will be an email going out shortly with more news.

You can find out more by joining my email list, here.