MUSICIAN Malcolm Ellingworth may lay claim to being the only person in Wellington who took part in the Queen’s Coronation Parade in 1953.

Mr Ellingworth, 87, who lives in Rockwell Green, recalled how he marched in pouring rain for about 10 miles on the parade around central London.

He served 20 years in the Army and was with the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars stationed in Germany when the regimental band was recalled to Earls Court, London, to take part in the parade.

The very next morning he flew to Warsaw to join Poland’s tributes to the Queen’s coronation because the 7th Hussars had been seconded to the 2nd Polish Corps during fighting in Italy in the Second World War.

Mr Ellingworth, who plays clarinet and saxaphone, later transferred to the Irish Guards and through their band he met the Queen Mother, the Queen herself, and Princess Margaret during the 1960s.

“We often used to play at the Palace and at the garden parties,” he said. “I met the Queen herself on one occasion.

“The band made a record album called ‘Marching with The Beatles’ and one track called ‘Michelle’ went to number five in the hit parade.

“The Queen came over to us at a garden party and she congratulated us on the record. I thought she seemed to be a very nice lady.”