YOU will have to be around 75 years of age to have any memory of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. For many it is seared in the memory as the first time they had watched television.

Now 70 years on we are preparing for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth's son in a ceremony, the origins of which stretch back to the Middle Ages if not earlier. Many of these ceremonies were held in Winchester Cathedral as the feature by Dr Tom Watson on page 40 illuminates.

It is easy to dismiss the event and we all know the arguments against the monarchy, this "mad parade" as the Sex Pistols sang in the Jubilee year of 1977. But whether you like it or not the coronation will remind the world what it is to be British. The Crown has little political power but it fulfills a role better than any other system of binding a nation together. Charles, who is 75, will be king for maybe 20 years, if he has the constitution of his mother, and then be succeeded by his son William, and he in turn by his son George. And that is how it should be. And if you ask most of the people in this country they would agree.