Overview

• The four-inch fruit cake slice was among 2,000 pieces cut from the four-tier, nine-foot confection designed by McVitie & Price for the November 1947 royal wedding.
• Kept in its original box with a silver-embossed “EP” cypher and “On His Majesty’s Service” wrapping, the slice remained uneaten and passed down through Chief Petty Officer F. Lownes’s family.
• Reeman Dansie Auctioneers in Colchester achieved a hammer price of £2,000, bringing the total sale to £2,700 after fees.
• Layton, a long-time royal memorabilia collector, will have about one-third of the slice flambéed in rum and consumed to mark his 65th birthday.
• The 500-lb wedding cake earned the nickname “the 10,000-mile cake” because its ingredients were flown in from across the Commonwealth during post-war rationing.