WREATH LAID ON WAR MEMORIAL

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 11

WREATH LAID ON WAR MEMORIAL

Queen Visits Suva Hospital [Special N.Z.P.A. Royal Tour Correspondent} (Rec. 8 p.m.) SUVA, December 17. Thirteen hundred white-clad veterans of two world wars stood in silence round the Queen today as she laid a wreath at the Suva War Memorial Hospital. With them were representatives of bereft families and a number of disabled men. In this, their first function of the afternoon, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh stepped from their car at the hospital entrance at 2.30 p.m. The Queen was wearing a light yellow sleeveless frock, with a wide neck. Her gloves, handbag and shoes were white, as was her straw hat, which carried a small red flower.

The Duke was in a light grey suit, with a green and grey tie. As the Royal couple walked slowly across the lawn, they were met by Sergeant Kitione Savu, a totally disabled veteran of the Solomons campaign, who handed to the Queen a wreath of Eucharist lilies and tiny red orchids. This she laid before the hospital steps, and as the crowd, which had grown to 3000. burst into a roar of acclamation, the Queen and the Duke climbed into a car for a 30minute drive to the new Central Medical School.

Groups lined the way, waving, singing and dancing" as the Queen went by. From the shade of a big white umbrella she and the Duke returned the greetings. Three thousand people in a. great palm sun shelter rose as Her Majesty drove up to the doors of the modern two-storeyed school. There she was received by the Inspector-General of the South Pacific Health Service (Dr. E. M. Cruikshanks), the principal of the school (Dr. A. Doran), and the Bishop in Polynesia (the Rt. Rev. L. S. Kempthorne). One by one, students representing island groups from the Solomons to the Gilberts were presented to the Queen and the Duke. Then the Royal party was taken on a tour of the building. During the ceremony the Queen received from a tiny Fijian girl in native dress a bouquet of small violet orchids. ~ When the Queen and the Duke left the crowd again came to its feet and I sang "‘‘lsa Lei” until the Royal car was only a dot on the road to the Adi Cakobau school.