Ecstatic Rock welcome

Press, 3 August 1981, Page 8

Ecstatic Rock welcome

NZPA Gibraltar A lightning honeymoon trip to Gibraltar by the Prince and Princess of Wales yesterday produced a wave of patriotic fervour among the staunchly loyalist Gibraltans. The length of this skm strip of rock was awash with the red, white and blue colours of the British flag as the colony’s 20,000 spanish-speak-ing Gibraltans and several thousand more British servicemen stationed, there greeted the Royal newlyweds. Gibraltans of all ages crowded the colony’s narrow streets, lined with flags and

bunting. They took up choruses of the British national anthem and shouted “British Gibraltar, British Gibraltar.” The Rock has been claimed by Spain since the British captured it irt 1704, and 12 years ago the late Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco, sealed the land border with Spain, producing a siege mentality that sharpened pro-British feelings during the Royal visit. Townsfolk said there were even more flags out for the visit than for the 1967 referendum when Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly to keen its-British links.

A police spokesman said most of the colony’s 30,000 population turned out to greet the Royal couple as they drove slowly in an open car through a town centre bedecked with streamers, balloons and bunting to join the Royal Yacht Britannia for a two-week honeymoon cruise in the Mediterranean. Two hours after their arrival in Gibraltar the Prince and Princess of Wales left aboard the Britannia, a flotilla of speed boats, yachts and tugs, sirens wailing and fog horns bellowing, following in the choppy wake of the Royal Yacht.