Tony Baker (Letters, September 10) asks if we can afford millions for a coronation.

That’s a fair question, but consider what we save both in cash and hassle by not having presidential elections every four years.

I think that our system of having a hereditary monarch as our head of state is a winner which is much admired by other countries, particularly for the wonderful example set by the Queen.

The handover is clear cut: ‘The Queen is dead : Long live the King’, followed by Saturday’s proclamation ceremony. No expensive and tedious election involved.

Many readers will not remember the last coronation in 1953 which was, I think, the first large-scale outside broadcast television programme.

I was 12 and we watched in black and white.

It was magical. Time for some more magic please.

Quentin Macdonald, Church Lane, Nether Poppleton, York