As King Charles arrives in Ottawa to deliver a historic speech from the throne, CBC’s chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault connects with a Canadian who shares a unique connection to the Royal Family that dates back to 1953.
The Coronation Girls got to see King Charles a second time.
“Not only did we have tea with the King in Buckingham Palace in December of 2023, but it was pretty unbelievable that his coming to Ottawa meant that a few of us could meet him again,” Carol Shipley told me.
The Coronation Girls are the focus of a documentary feature film that premiered late last year and followed a dozen Canadian women when they were in England late in 2023. They retraced the steps of a formative trip they made to the United Kingdom as teenagers at the time of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953
Three of the Coronation Girls were at Rideau Hall yesterday watching Charles and Camilla plant the blue beech tree.
“It was so fitting for King Charles to plant a tree. He was concerned about the environment long before most of us were thinking of it,” Shipley, of Ottawa, said.
“At the palace, he and Yvonne Harris, a Coronation Girl from the Yukon and more recently, Port Coquitlam, B.C., shared their passion and commitment to save the planet.”
Shipley recalled Yvonne telling Charles: “Trees are the lungs of our planet.”
Yvonne died two months ago, Shipley said.
“We are especially grateful to His Majesty for coming to Canada at this important moment in our country’s history to support us in our resolve to protect our sovereign nation from threat.”
