Queen Elizabeth II: Newcastle nurses remember different views of coronation

Gwenda Gofton and Edna Nichol trained at Newcastle General Hospital

Two retired nurses who started their careers as the Queen began her reign have shared their different experiences of watching her coronation.

Gwenda Gofton and Edna Nichol, both 88, trained at Newcastle General Hospital.

Mrs Gofton watched the 1953 ceremony in the nurses' home but "could hardly see the screen at all" because it was obscured a senior nurse's "huge" cap.

Mrs Nichol was "fortunate" to work on a children's ward which had a television and saw "quite a lot of it".

Some nurses had been allowed to leave the ward for one hour to watch the coronation, Mrs Gofton recalled.

"We had a senior sister tutor, a very strict lady, who sat herself down in front of the television, in a huge armchair," she said.

"She was the only one who wore the old fashioned great big cap, which stuck out. Huge thing.

"Sitting anywhere behind her we could hardly see the screen at all."

Edna Nichol and Gwenda Gofton are in the middle row, sixth from left, and far right

As a 14-year-old, during World War II, the Queen gave a radio address to children across the nation.

Recorded at Windsor Castle with her sister Margaret, it was intended to reassure children evacuated from their homes to keep them safe from German bombing.

Mrs Gofton said it had felt like a "special programme just for me".

She said: "She was speaking to me to thank the kind people who had taken us in, welcomed us into their homes and that was quite exciting.

"I really did think she was speaking to me."

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Mrs Nichol said the Queen "never put a foot wrong" throughout her reign.

She was a "wonderful, wonderful monarch and mother", she said.

Mrs Gofton added she could not "imagine life without the Queen".

She was "respected all over the world, which is more than any prime minister would ever be", she said.