A tea party recently saw more than 80 members and guests gather at Age Concern Otago’s Octagon Club.
While dressed in their best and enjoying tea and tasty treats, memories of the Queen filled the room.
Margaret McConville (80) recalled her childhood in the shipyard building town of Clydebank, Scotland.
She remembered being taken out of school one day to help line the streets as the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived to christen the royal yacht HMY Britannia in 1953.
"That was a long time ago."
Another memory was standing beside Princess Anne in the Octagon during the Queen’s visit to Dunedin.
"I was so surprised, I turned and I saw it was Princess Anne, and it was just her and me.
"I was just crossing the street getting back to work and I thought ‘that’s Princess Anne!".
"I was eight, so I probably didn’t think too much about it other than my mother cried all day.
"On the radio — because there was no TV in those days — they played dirges all day."
Later she recalled seeing the coronation of the Queen on a newsreel in a movie theatre.
"The coronation was absolutely magnificent."
Amelie Huch (63) recalled a visit by the Queen to Queen Salote College in Tonga in the ’70s when she was a pupil.
Elsie Herriott said she saw the Queen and Prince Charles when they visited Greymouth. She couldn’t recall the date, but it might have been one of the visits in the 1970s.
"They drove by."
She was turning 100 this week and said the Queen had been a constant presence.
"She has been there all our lives ... she was always smiling."
