Oxford celebrated the Coronation in style, with many buildings decorated and floodlit in 1953.

One of the most striking displays was a crown with flags on the roof of Oxford railway station.

Oxford Town Hall boasted another, with cherubs, a crown, flags, coats of arms, a picture of the new monarch and a message, Long Live the Queen.

The Roman Catholic Church of St Francis of Assisi at Cowley featured red, white and blue flowers on its perimeter walls and two white and gold columns, with the Papal flag and the flag of St George on top. The display was illuminated at night.

Meanwhile, Cowley car workers entered the factory through two decorated entrances.

We were reminded of the city’s Coronation celebrations when Doreen Phillips of Didcot sent in pictures of floodlit historic buildings and monuments in the city at that time.

The man responsible for the floodlighting was her father Bill Hicks, head of the maintenance department at the Southern Electricity Board in Oxford.

The pictures show the results of his team’s efforts to illuminate the city during the celebrations.

Mr Hicks, who was born in Reading, worked as a theatre electrician in Leicester before coming to Oxford to join the Oxford Electric Company in 1933.

He joined the Southern Electricity Board when the industry was nationalised in 1948 and was based at the SEB depot in Marston Street, East Oxford. He died in 1961, aged 57, while still working.