If you planned a barbecue to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee this bank holiday weekend, the chances are you didn't have to apply to the government to do so.

But in 1953, a year after the Queen took over as the monarch, following the death of her father, George VI, the county joined the world in celebrating her coronation with rationing still in place.

Which meant if you planned to roast an ox – a traditional celebration meal for royal events – you needed permission to do so.

After all, the effects of the Second World War were still being felt. Food supplies were still being tightly controlled by the government after part of the German war machine's strategy had been to target our food supplies.

Rationing was only eased, incredibly, in 1954.

Which explains why residents in the likes of Ide Hill, near Sevenoaks, were forced to have to persuade the Ministry of Food to allow the village to be one of just a few places permitted to roast an ox to mark the Queen's Coronation.

More than 150 areas applied to be able to roast one of the animals on the day but to do so they had to prove a tradition of roasting oxen existed in the local area for such regal occasions.

The rather cheeky Ide Hill team argued they "always roasted an ox for the coronation of a queen". Something even those at the time thought something of a bending of the truth.

However, permission was given – it was one of just 82 applications eventually approved – and the mammoth task of cooking the half-ton animal began over a fire estimated to burn eight tons of wood. Some 12 men helped to get the ox on a spit over the fireplace at dawn and the ox was finally ready for eating by the evening, when 500 villagers joined in the revelry.

As part of the deal, all the councils of the places approved – Margate also got the nod – had to finance the purchase of the ox and agree that all meat should be distributed for free.

All of which will have at least warmed those attending a little as the weather was unseasonably cold for June, with rain persisting through much of the day.

Babies born in Ramsgate on the day of the Queen's coronation were, literally, quids in.

The then mayor of the town decided that every child born on June 2 would have an account opened at the Ramsgate Trustee Savings Bank with £2 deposited in each.

A nice gesture, especially when you consider that's the equivalent of more than £60 today.

Margate did a similar giveaway, with midwives in the district also given silver cups to award to the four babies (or their exhausted mothers at least) in each area (Birchington, Cliftonville, Garlinge and Margate East) born closest to the point the crown was placed on the Queen's head. If you came second, then you got a special spoon or a five shilling piece (about the equivalent today of £7).

The decorations hung in London to mark the coronation proved a big tourist attraction for weeks after the event.

They included illuminated arches in The Mall linked along the route by long lines of flags mounted with golden crowns. The lights were officially switched on by the Queen as she appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in the evening of her coronation.

The East Kent Road Car Company (later to be snapped up by Stagecoach) ran daily trips up to the capital for visitors to admire what had been erected, running in passengers from Margate and Ramsgate until June 22.

In the day ahead of the big occasion, it ferried passengers in the early hours of the morning – buses leaving Thanet just after midnight – in order for them to be able to take up position on the procession route at 4am.

After the Queen emerged from Westminster Abbey, she made a lengthy 7.2-mile journey back – a security chief's headache today – in order for as many people in London to be able to see their new monarch (and it's estimated three million people lined the streets).

Returning to Buckingham Palace, she wore the newly-made Purple Robe of Estate. The intricate embroidery upon which had taken 3,500 hours to complete by a team of 12 seamstresses from the Royal School of Needlework. The silk for which originated in a silk farm in Lullingstone, between Sevenoaks and Dartford.

Lullingstone Silk Farm, with silk worms imported from China, was established by Lady Zoe Hart Dyke, current owner Tom Hart Dyke's paternal grandmother, in the early 1930s and was the country's first such farm. In 1937 it had provided the silk for Queen Elizabeth (later to be known as the Queen Mother) at her coronation.

It also provided the silk for parachutes used during the Second World War.

The silk farm later produced silk for the late Princess Diana's wedding dress but by that time the farm had been sold and moved to Dorset.

Margate's Dreamland has seen plenty of big crowds over the years so it was fittingly the location for the town's coronation celebrations.

Quite aside from the roasting of the ox – as mentioned above – a number of television sets were brought into the park to enable those without access to one to watch the big day.

The event was the first major national event to be televised live and it proved such a success it was deemed key to TV's move into the mainstream.

The BBC, which broadcast the event, estimated 10.4 million people watched in the homes of friends and neighbours, and 1.5 million watched in public places like pubs and cinemas. In total, it's thought 27m people in the country tuned in.

In Dreamland, the car park doubled up as a gathering space for a mass thanksgiving event, while there were also parades through the town and the firing of a 21-gun salute.

Meanwhile, members of the Scouts relay-ran between the beacons in Margate through to Westgate and Birchington, lighting them in honour of the newly crowned Queen.