75th Anniversary of Royal Family Visit to South Africa Day 21

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 Day 21: 20th February 1947

Royal Programme

40 mile Car journey to Paarl and Stellenbosch

Drive though Paarl and see school children

Lunch at old Homestead of Bien Donne, a fruit research station. Luncheon was served under the trees

Stellenbosch next on the list in the afternoon and the visit to the wine area.

The postmark of the day. (This was seen on the first day of this blog and the reason for this collection). This letter was one of many sent by someone who went with the Royal Family on their visits. Hence the Stellenbosch postmark.



The first part of the visit was to Paarl and South Africa produced a booklet to introduce visitors to South Africa and this is what they said about Paarl.


A picture from the ILN showing the Royal Family on route to Paarl and Stellenbosch.


The second part of the visit was to Stellenbosch and this was the information in the booklet about Stellenbosch


The Captain had special visitors to the Vanguard in the morning and afternoon but at 16.15 he was shown over the Royal Train which was parked close to the ship ready for the start of the Tour leaving Cape Town behind. He then had 3 functions to attend to in the evening. A comment in his Diary "the ships company are behaving very well indeed. So far no cases of disorder and only 3 cases of drunkenness.

Search lights light up the Table mountain, a picture from ILN.


HMS Vanguard from  Table top mountain



An example of a ticket given to the Navy to use on the trams.



A couple of examples of covers. 




Clifford Mortimer was a stamp collector and a stationmaster









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