75th Anniversary of Royal Family Visit to South Africa Day1

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Day 1: 31st January 1947

This is the start of the journey by the Royal Family as it visits South Africa and I aim to post every day to 13th May when the Royal Family arrived back in England. I will add photos, stamp covers, extracts from the Captains diary etc. There will be a mixture of items for first 2 weeks until the HMS Vanguard arrives in South Africa.

I became interested in the Royal Visit 20 years ago when I attended the South African Collectors Society AGM in Chester 2002 and at the end of the meeting there was an auction and I purchased for say £5.00 some envelopes and here is one example.

I wrote to the address on the envelope and received a response. Predictably being 55 years after the event the next door neighbour told me that the resident had passed away 20 years prior.


From there my collection has grown and with the initial support of two members, Ian Shapiro (who I met and was impressed with his knowledge and collection of the Royal Visit material) and the late Eddie Bridges (who encouraged me to look into the social aspect of the trip by collecting photos to aid the collection).

I have collected material over the years from online auction sites plus being a member of the South African Collectors there have been opportunities to purchase items. The society website is

www.southafricacollector.com

 BACK TO THE ROYAL VISIT

The Royal Visit was announced on the 26th March 1946 by Buckingham Palace to take place in February 1947, so there was a long time to prepare for the trip and finally the Royal Family left Buckingham Palace and arrived at Waterloo Station to take the train to Portsmouth .

 Once in Portsmouth the Royal Family boarded HMS Vanguard. 

There were large crowds in  Portsmouth ready to send the Royal Family off. There was such large numbers there was special viewing areas available to see the Royal family such as below

                                                                                                                                                                    The Royal Family boarded the ship ready to leave in the morning,




Notes from Captains personal Diary

16.35 T.M’s (The Majesties King & Queen) with the Princess’s embarked on to HMS Vanguard with other member’s of the Royal Family to say goodbye they left at 17.50.

The Captain Agnew then presented officer’s and heads of dockyard who had done alterations to the ship departments to TM’s .




There was a diner with TM’s, Mountbatten's, Admiral Sir Geoffrey and wife along with Mrs Agnew.

































































Comments

  1. NorfolksunriserJanuary 31, 2022 at 10:19 AM

    This is an interesting day one, I look forward, as do the rest of the family to reading more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. David OsbornJanuary 31, 2022 at 2:45 PM

      Thank you for your comments and hopefully it will be of interest over the coming weeks. I have added a couple more pictures on the 31st that I have discovered.

      Delete

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