4000 Join Children In Welcome At Park

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30059, 18 February 1963, Page 12

4000 Join Children In Welcome At Park

Although officially the centre for Christchurch’s welcome to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on Saturday, Lancaster Park could have provided many thousands more with a wonderful opportunity to see the Royal couple. Many persons apparently chose to swell the thousands which lined the route from the airport.

The official reception, however, lost none of its effect. It was a magnificent spectacle of sound and colour. The thousands of flag-waving cheering schoolchildren assembled on the oval more than compensated for the crowd of only 4000 in No. 1 stand and at the entrance end of the embankment.

The first few people to arrive at the park did so from about 6.30 am. and by the time the gates opened at 9.30 a.m. there were several hundred.

At 12.56 pm. the longawaited moment arrived. A storm of cheering broke over the park as the Queen and the Duke stepped out ot their car and mounted the utility vehicle for a ceremonial circuit of the ground before going on to the dais. They were greeted by the Mayor (Mr G. Manning), the Mayoress, and the Town Clerk (Mr C. S. Bowie).

The prolonged cheering which first, greeted the sight of the Royal Ensign continued over eyery yard of the drive. It was only when the Band of the Ist Battalion, Canterbury Regiment, played

toe National Anthem that the crowd subsided into silence.

After the anthem 12-year-old Wendy Perks, a pupil of the Sumner School, presented a bouquet to Her Majesty. The 'Mayor then read the loyal address, after which the choir sang the first of its six songs.

A bracket of three songs were sung after Her Majesty’s reply to the address. The welcome concluded with three cheers called for by the Mayor.