Queen Elizabeth was never far from the East End during her 70 years as our Monarch.
She was accompanied by secret agent 007 James Bond, actor Daniel Craig, opening the 2012 Olympics at Stratford, another time visiting victims injured on the 2005 Aldgate bombing.
The East End was the first place on the royal agenda after her Coronation in 1953, the very next day.
It was an irony that her last visit in 2017, as in 1953, was with the Duke of Edinburgh, but this time his last public engagement before retiring at 96.
It all began for East Enders when hundreds-of-thousands of people packed the streets on a bright Wednesday afternoon in June 1953 as the new Queen’s motorcade battled to get through surging crowds.
Her car drew up outside the Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital in Hackney Road where nurse Dorothy Harris stepped out carrying one of her young patients, three-year-old Colin Towers who was clutching flowers. But the toddler was too shy to hand them over, so Nurse Harris gave them to Prince Philip to give to the Queen.
Parents outside Poplar Civic Centre in Bow, further along the route, passed their children over the heads of the crowd to policemen at the front who ushered the youngsters to vantage points for a better view as the royal motorcade approached.
Two children on the pavement outside St Clement’s Hospital in Mile End Road, eight-year-old Rosy Gay from Poplar and nine-year-old John Davis from Chadwell Heath, were spotted by Prince Philip who gave them a special wave.
Children from Robert Montefiore Primary school waited for the motorcade at the kerb along the Whitechapel Road with nurses and doctors from the London Hospital. But the crowd of factory and brewery workers, dockers and tailors on the other side of the road surged forward and brought the royal car to a halt in front of the hospital.
“I nearly touched her — I nearly touched her,” screamed an excited woman in the crowd.
The East London Advertiser’s front-page two days later reported: “The crowds broke through the police cordon. But the Queen, looking charming in a powder-blue fitted coat and matching scalloped cloche hat, smiled and waved a gloved hand to her people.”
The Queen returned in July 2005, a day after suicide bombings on the London Underground which claimed 52 lives including seven passengers on a Circle line train approaching Aldgate. She visited the inured at the Royal London Hospital and met nurses and ambulance crews who had coped with the emergency.
A visit to Reuters news agency’s new HQ near Canary Wharf came in 2006, then three years later the historic Whitechapel bell foundry to see how bells are cast like Big Ben. She also visited Fulton’s umbrella factory in Blackwall, picking the perfect moment as the heavens opened.
But her most poignant visit in 2017 was her last with Prince Philip before he retired, to commemorate the centenary at Mayflower Primary School in Poplar of the 18 children killed in a German air raid in the First World War when a bomb crashed through the roof.
The pupils showed the royal couple their centenary project in which Upper North Street school, as it was called then, got a direct hit.
Seven year-old Ayaan Ahmed from Limehouse showed the Queen his story of five-year-old Rose Simons in 1917 who was trapped for three days in the rubble and finally rescued by her older brother Jim who carries on digging long after rescuers had given up.
“The Queen said it was very dramatic,” Ayaan said afterwards. “I’ve never seen the Queen before, but my mum has. I like the Queen. She is very, very old, but is very nice.”
Headteacher Dee Bleach told the Queen: “Your visit sends a unifying message to those living and working today.”
The Queen signed the visitors’ book, watched by Prince Philip on his last official engagement.
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