Sunday marks 70 years since the death of King George VI and his daughter – then 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth – becoming the new monarch.
There will be celebrations across the UK to pay tribute to the Queen’s incredible 70-year reign during a bumper June bank holiday weekend, with school pupils in the region getting the extra time off so they can join in.
It is hoped that communities across Dumfries and Galloway will join in and we’d love to hear your plans. So if you are panning garden parties, street parties, tree planting or anything to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, please email: sharon.liptrott@reachplc.com, call 07917516142, or send a message to our Facebook page.
In the meantime, in tribute to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Alison Burgess, team leader for local studies and archives development at the Ewart Library, took a trip down memory lane this week with a troll through the archives to uncover a copy of the Dumfries and Galloway Standard which broke the historic royal news story to the region seven decades ago.
Reports tell of how the royal heir and her husband, the late Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, were on a Commonwealth tour in Kenya when they received news that the King was found dead in his bed at Sandringham House in Norfolk on the morning of February 6, 1952, at the age of 56 — making his eldest daughter the new monarch.
She had last seen him waving her off from the airport tarmac six days early.
He previously suffered from lung cancer and had had a lung removed. It was later determined that he had died of coronary thrombosis.
The Standard reported that he had been in “the best of health” the previous day and his death had “plunged the nation into deep sorrow”.
It said that in a “moving” evening radio broadcast, Prime Minister William Churchill said: “For months the King had walked with death.”
His death was announced at 10.45am from Sandringham – although he’d been found by a manservant at 7.30am – and a Press Association message said he had “passed away peacefully in his sleep”.
The Standard report said: “His death is a sorrow which will be felt in every British home and which will be shared throughout the world. He was sincerely and affectionately regarded everywhere.”
His had been a 15 year reign – brought on by the abdication of his brother – and included the Second World War,
Although the King had never paid an “official” visit to Dumfriesshire, he did visit twice during the war years but the Standard was “for security reasons, prohibited from referring to them and the only people who knew at the time were the police and the military”.
Apparently, in March 1943 he arrived by train at Thornhill and made a tour of the training camps there to inspect troops going to the North Africa Campaign.
The Standard report said: “From Thornhill he motored to Carronbridge and then down the Glasgow Road to Dumfries, where he went along the Sands to St Michael’s Bridge and thence to Troqueer Mill, and was seen by the inhabitants of the district inspecting the troops.”
It adds: “From there he motored through Lochmaben and Lockerbie to Langholm, where he inspected troops on the Millgreen.”
And it reveals: “On another occasion, His Majesty spent the night in his sleeping saloon on the branch line to Moniaive before going on to some large-scale manoeuvres in Ayrshire.”
The Standard also states that the region’s towns proclaimed “a new sovereign by the name of Queen Elizabeth II”.
The official proclamation was made for Dumfries at the Midsteeple by Sheriff Charles Milne KC, Sherriff-Principal of Dumfries and Galloway.
It was proceeded by a procession of “local government officials, representatives of administrative bodies, and a guard of honour by the 5th Battalion King’s Own Scottish Borderers.
It also said: “There is every reason for hope and confidence that the reign that begins this week will be long and fraught with great good for the people.”
