As measured by the biblical formula of three score and 10, 70 years is a full lifetime. It’s also the epic span of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. Even with a Proustian effort of recollection, less than 7% of the British population will have any memory of the day on 6 February 1952 that George VI died and his eldest daughter became monarch.
Of that number, only a fraction will recall that the song that topped the charts at the time was Mario Lanza’sf The Loveliest Night of the Year. No doubt more will know that Harry Styles is currently No 1 with As It Was, but that achievement is no longer a piece of national knowledge but a leftover token from an earlier era.
