Growing up in Sunderland: When Queen Elizabeth II visited Wearside - and you were part of it
Communities across Wearside have experienced many royal visits down the years, but do you remember these ones?
Queen Elizabeth II made a number of trips to Sunderland during her reign, and for our September edition of the Wearside Echoes newsletter (sign up here) we wanted to know if you played a part in them.
Do you remember seeing her in the 1950s in the early years after her Coronation, or is your stand-out memory from the Silver Jubilee year? Perhaps you were there when she opened the Chester Wing at Sunderland Royal Hospital in 2000, or when she took in the Stadium of Light in 2012.
See if these stories from Echo readers on our retro Facebook group prompt a memory of your own. If so, we would love to hear it.
The new Queen
Jean Potts-Atkinson: "My Mam took me to see her in Sunderland when I was two years old in 1953 or ‘54."
Joyce Smith: "Saw her in the ‘50s l was five years old."
Frank Conlin: "On my dad’s shoulder, six years old outside Town Hall [in] ‘54."
Bill Holland: "Seven years old in 1954 standing in Roker Avenue with my mam seeing the dye run out of my union flag in the pouring rain."
Silver Jubilee
Dianne Hardy: "1977, St. Anthony's girls’ school. We were marched in a crocodile. Stood near the Queen Alexandra Bridge for a couple of hours, nuns handed out Union Jack flags, the Queen and Prince Philip drove past waving, lots of people out to see them. Her Silver Jubilee year!"
Derek Crooks: "1977, Red House School took us all down to Wessington Way to watch her go past.”
Kim Dee: "I think she came in the Silver Jubilee year? I remember street parties and being given a commemorative coin & small dish at some point-still have them. I was at Green Terrace Primary school at the time.
"I saw her more clearly when I went to college in Canterbury in the mid ‘80s and she opened a new computer centre. We were sat on the front wall of our student digs eating breakfast in the sunshine. The limo came past very slowly and she and Prince Philip waved at us, as we were the only people in that spot.
"I met Lady Diana at a community centre in the East End in the early 1990s - she sat on my table but I was too shy to say anything. She seemed shy too."
Moments to remember
Hilda Davidson: "1946-7 when the then-Princess Elizabeth visited the shipyards. I was at Simpson Street School, it was a wet day and when she passed I thought she was made of wax, she was beautiful."
Deborah Lough: "I was in the Girl Guides, we lined the streets in the city centre."
Maxine Iley: "Montessori school in Sunderland. We went to see her drive past in town and got a pink ballet case from the school."
Linda Carter: "Yes when I worked down the East End community centre. We all went as VIP down to the Port of Call where the ship Britannia was and the schools round about and the Wueen was visiting places in Sunderland. I even managed to speak to her. I think that was about 1988-89."
Tom Hiles: "School took us out and we all stood on the footpath what seemed like hours then a big car flashed past and a hand was waving, gone in about two seconds then we all walked back to school.”
Freda Davison: "Yes she opened the new Chester wing at the Sunderland Royal Hospital, remember it well."
Muriel Munro Shaw: "Saw her at Seaham. She actually approached my mother and I, and said hello."