Ar E YOU FE d U p WIT h CLUTTE r?

For many home owners, the loft is an under utilised area, because it can be difficult and dangerous to reach. Access4Lofts Worthing is owned by Attila minor. much of the work he carries out is for growing families. “I know how crucial storage space can be for large families,” says Attila. “I also find that a large percentage of my clients are retired people, looking for the safest access to their loft available.”

Freeing up a room currently clogged with clutter can save a lot of trouble and expense, as Attila explains: “Some people looking for more space consider moving to a bigger home, but this needn’t be necessary; installing a loft ladder is quick and affordable. people are surprised by the amount of space that can be reclaimed in a loft, we can even include shelving to maximise the space.”

Access4Lofts provides a free survey and quote service, so you can find out what is achievable with your loft area. This could also be a fantastic opportunity to think about some better insulation. A properly insulated roof can knock as much as 20 per cent of your energy bills, so you and your family can be sure to keep cosy and warm this winter without worrying about those bills come spring

Access4Lofts is an approved Which? Trusted trader which means they have been accessed by Which? and passed their stringent checks. For added confidence, Access4Lofts has full public liability insurance and all ladders and work carried out comes with a Lifetime Guarantee.

To find out how Attila can create more space in your loft, or to book a free survey and quote, visit www.access4lofts.co.uk/worthing or give Attila a call on 01903 380190.

kING ChArLES III bY kIm LESLIE

On Saturday 6 may, king Charles III will be crowned and Sussex and the rest of the Uk will be awash with Union Jack bunting and street parties.

The First king Charles was executed; the Second hid in an oak tree to save his neck; the Third awaits the full pageantry of his coronation. Charles I brought warfare into the very heart of an otherwise peaceful Sussex with parts of Chichester destroyed, the Cathedral sacked, Arundel besieged, churches vandalised, the world was turned upside down by his victorious Cromwellian enemies.

Sussex was the scene of the last few miles of the future Charles II’s escape into exile – the greatest manhunt of the 17th century. Today the monarch’s Way commemorates this desperate journey into safety, snaking across the country some 600 miles long, before plunging into the churning waters of the English Channel at Shoreham. his oak-tree escapade at boscobel is still commemorated by hundreds of royal Oak pubs throughout the country. king Charles III’s namesakes lived – and died – in extraordinary times.

Today, we watch our new king Charles face our own quite extraordinary times. how will he be judged in the dock of history? That’s for the future. but with last September’s accession and may’s coronation we start with new beginnings. As one recent biographer puts it: ‘Charles III promises to be as memorable a king as Charles I’ – just hopefully different!

Charles is the forty-first monarch since king William I came to rule by violent conquest at hastings in 1066. Even his coronation on Christmas day 1066 ended in pandemonium, most of the congregation fleeing in terror from a fire in Westminster Abbey’s precincts. A few brave clergy remained and with some difficulty completed the consecration of William, seen trembling from head to foot. Coronations have brought their fair share of drama. Edward VIII resisted his own coronation in the 1930s, refusing to attend planning meetings, preferring an Adriatic cruise with Wallace Simpson – love and pleasure before duty – finally backing out with his abdication and exile. It was a nightmare scenario for the Earl marshal, the duke of Norfolk, in charge of Edward’s aborted coronation, just as his successor, the present duke, is in charge of this year’s coronation. Throughout Queen Elizabeth’s reign, successive dukes of Norfolk, with their seat at Arundel, have overseen Operation Golden Orb, the codename under which plans for king Charles’ coronation have been drawn up over many decades. ready and waiting for now.

Over the centuries there’s been drama, as well as spectacle. Today, television gives us all a ringside seat. Times change. back in 1953 there was opposition to letting TV cameras into Westminster Abbey: it was wrong to watch such a solemn occasion whilst casually drinking tea or chatting to family members in the front room; unfair to expose the Queen and others to this searching method of broadcasting, bristling with intrusive zoom lenses. Elizabeth overruled all these objections, so millions watched what was then the biggest outside bbC broadcast of the century. The sales of black and white televisions rocketed in the weeks leading up to the great day in June. (TV licences, incorporating a radio license, then cost just £2 a year.) This was the first time a live TV broadcast went international, with simultaneous transmission into Europe. recordings were flown across the Atlantic by Canberra jet bomber for showing in Canada and USA the very same evening.

The Queen’s coronation had an enormous effect in the development of television. Seventy years on, this may’s pageantry will be watched live by millions – maybe billions – across the whole world. We’ve come a long way since 1953.

If today is the age of colour TV and photography, in the long-distant past it was the age of the artist-chronicler. One of the first English coronations to be illustrated was that of king harold, the last Saxon king, embroidered into the bayeux Tapestry in the 1070s. Scores of illuminated medieval manuscripts show the solemn ceremony in brilliant, dazzling colour.

The religious ceremony has remained much the same for more than a thousand years, descending directly from the earliest account of an English coronation: that of the crowning of king Edgar in bath in 973. buckingham palace has declared there will be changes for may’s coronation, for whilst it will be ‘rooted in longstanding tradition’ it will ‘reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future’, embodying the same core elements whilst recognising the modern spirit of the twenty-first century. It will be marked with ‘solemnity, celebration and pageantry’.

Of the pageantry and splendour of the last coronation in 1953, one diarist wrote, ‘What a day for England … Shall we ever see the like again?’ That question will soon be answered on Saturday 6 may …