Eltham librarians book in a right royal coronation celebration

The crown jewels were fake, but the morning tea was fit for a king when the librarians in Eltham hosted a coronation high tea party.

A bevvy of blokes decked out in handcrafted crowns joined the librarians for a magnificent morning tea at the town’s library on Wednesday to celebrate the impending coronation of King Charles on Saturday.

It was one of a series of celebratory events being held this week at all the libraries in South Taranaki.

Eltham Community Board member Lindsay Maindonald, resplendent in a formal morning suit, was invited along as the council representative and the town’s best known royalist.

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He joined members of the regular Wednesday “casual cuppa” group at a table set with lace doilies and flowers.

“We’re local yokels, we come and solve all the world’s problems, have a yak about all the global world stuff like climate change and electric cars,” Joe Fraser said.

Once they’d each made a cardboard crown decorated with plastic gems, the art supplies were cleared away, a right royal morning tea prepared by the librarians was brought out.

The spread included a Victoria sponge, scones with cream and jam, and dainty sandwiches, accompanied by tea, from an elegant silver tea service, poured into fine china cups.

“We did talk about how we should be serving quiché, which is one of the dishes at the coronation dinner, with spinach and broad beans, but we decided to stick with cakes and cream,” district librarian Billie Sculpher​ said.

Their guests approved heartily of her menu choices.

“We are real men here, we don’t eat quiche,” joked Fraser, tucking into a cucumber sandwich.

“Thanks for making all the cakes, it was really enjoyable, all very nice.”

Most of them planned to watch the coronation on TV on Saturday, and they had a few ideas for the newly-crowned king to consider afterwards.

“My priority would be to see that New Zealand gets its health problems sorted out,” Dan Young said.

“I’d tell him to get the roads right, and put everything back on rail,” Fraser said.

Sculpher said the district’s library staff were enjoying hosting events again, after the upheaval of the pandemic.

“We just thought it would be nice to celebrate something lovely at this time.”