In 1953, London was still recovering from World War II. The city was pockmarked with bomb damage, food supplies were tight and life was dull for children who had never eaten anything so exotic as a banana.Central London buzzed with activity as workers built temporary stands along the 5-mile route of the queen's procession.
"We hadn't been into the abbey for a long time, and I was absolutely astonished by the sight of it because it was ... transformed inside with wonderful new carpets and balconies,'' he said. "There the television lights for the filming, which made the whole thing sparkle.
For Toussaint and his friends, it was a day of food, games and patriotic songs, just like on Empire Day, the annual holiday created at the turn of the last century to remind children in the United Kingdom's far-flung outposts that they were British. Thousands of people from the Caribbean were caught up in a government crackdown on immigration, with many losing jobs, housing and benefits if they were unable to produce documents proving their right to be in the country. The government was forced to apologize and pay compensation for what became known as the Windrush Scandal, named after the ship that brought the first Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948.But Toussaint blames Britain's elected government for the scandal, not the monarchy.
But he only had one roll of film - 25 frames - to capture the cavalcade in the era before smart phones and digital cameras, and he wanted to make sure he got one image of the queen.
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