ROYAL TOUR OF EAST END

Southland Times, Issue 25669, 11 May 1945, Page 5

ROYAL TOUR OF EAST END

CROWDS CHEER KING AND QUEEN LONDON, May 9. The King and Queen and the two Princesses, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, shortly before 1 p.m. (G.M.T.), received round after round of cheers from the crowd around the palace railing. In the afternoon the Royal Family left the palace in an gpen car for a tour of the East End and the Mall was lined with a solid crowd of people waiting to glimpse their Majesties.

Tire crowd, while waiting near the palace, sang to the music of Army bands. There was an ovation, as the Royal Family passed through the crowds, comparable only with the Coronation celebrations.

The drive through cheering crowds lasted two and a-half hours. In the East End they received the biggest welcome of their reign. Their car drove at a crawl while men and women waved and cheered, beat on the car windows with red, white and blue emblems, and threw red, white and blue streamers. The King and Queen waved and smiled continually. V BOMB DAMAGE They-..made their first stop at Bethnal Green, where they inspected the spot where a V bomb had destroyed three blocks of dwellings, with a death-roll of more than 130. The crowd was so enthusiastic that their Majesties were mobbed and A.R.P. officials were obliged to force a way for them back to the car. The crowd sang the National Anthem while the King and Queen looked at the ruins. Both made anxious inquiries about the housing conditions and expressed the hope that homes would be built as speedily as possible. A dense crowd gathered all along the route from the Palace to the East End and back. The King and Queen reappeared on the Buckingham Palace balcony after their tour and a crowd almost as large as last night collected outside the gates and a roar, “We want the King,” went up from, thousands. The Coldstream Guards band played marches until the Royal party’s appearance.