Fog Threatens To Disrupt Royal Tour

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28926, 20 June 1959, Page 13

Fog Threatens To Disrupt Royal Tour

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

(Rec. 10.30 p.m.) ST. JOHN’S (Newfoundland), June 19. It was the equivalent of 3 o’clock in the morning when the Queen got to bed last night.

Actually, it was 11.30 p.m. Newfoundland time. • But the Queen had been operating on British time since she left London yesterday.

She wound up a busy arrival schedule with a private dinner at Government House, where Lieutenant-Governor Campbell McPherson was host.

Among the guests were the Premier (Mr Smallwood) and members of the Governor’s and the Queen’s staffs. Mr Esmond Butler, the Canadian member of the Queen’s press secretariat, said she intended to get eight hours’ sleep last night. Her schedule for today will be typical of the whole 45-day trip. She will read about 17 newspapers, both British and Canadian, early in the morning, and find time during the day for an hour with official dispatches. Among her duties today is the distribution of gifts that have been madd in her name—a keynote of this tour—when she will give out 10,000 dollars in scholarships for retarded children... The money was voted by the Provincial Legislature.

Only hours after the Queen and her husband stepped into an open convertible yesterday to tour part of St. John’s, fog moved back over the whole island. This brought frowns to the brows of tour officials, whose schedule calls for the Royal visitors to fly from one centre to another for the next two days. Then they will board the Royal yacht Britannia at Sept-Iles, on the St. Lawrence river’s north shore, 300 miles east of Quebec City to continue their 15,000-mile tour.

Canadians hoped that the burst of fine weather which greeted the Royal couple’s arrival yesterday would continue today for the 130-mile flight to Gander. The Queen is to open a new 3.500,000dollar airport terminal building there. But on their second day in Canada, the Royal couple again faced the threat of disrupted plans because of ever-pressing fog. the Canadian Press reported.