Chapter 22 Summary

"About Coronation Ale"

Tom Crick then goes on to relate the history of the Atkinson special Ale, a potent and irresistible brew perfected in 1911 by Ernest Atkinson and released at the time of the Coronation of King George V that year, and named Coronation Ale. It is a bottle of this mystical beverage that is linked to the death of Freddie Parr in 1943, and Crick will reveal in later chapters that his brother Dick, entrusted to a quantity of the Coronation Ale upon the death of his mother (daughter of Ernest Atkinson), gave a bottle of it to Freddie just before Freddie's death. Crick tells his audience that Coronation Ale lead to "drunkenness in many sudden and wonderful forms"- the Atkinson brewery burned the night of the coronation of King George V, another omen for the historian Crick. It was believed that...