It's London in the late autumn of 1947. The capital is black from the smoke of coal fires and the buildings still show the raw scars of wartime bombing. Clothes are still rationed and so is fuel. But something astonishing is happening in the heart of the city.

Nearly a million people are lining the streets, from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey and for one day the woes of the nation are forgotten as wedding bells ring out for the beautiful Princess, Elizabeth, and her handsome sailor Prince, Philip. Churchill called it 'a flash of colour on the hard road we have to travel'.

The 1947 Royal Wedding heralded the beginning of a new era of hope and optimism in austerity Britain. It was the people's wedding.