Queensland remembers: Queen’s visits to Sunshine State recalled fondly by
The sudden death of the Queen has sparked an outpouring of nostalgia from Queenslanders in a state visited by her eight times. Here are their stories.
QLD News
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For former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, it was Queen Elizabeth’s emotional intelligence which was so memorable.
For one of Brisbane’s most popular Mayors, Sallyanne Atkinson, it was the Monarch’s warmth and authenticity.
For one of our longest serving premiers, Peter Beattie, it was the Queen’s easy affability in a crowd, along with what appeared to be an intriguing ability to influence Queensland’s capricious weather.
The sudden death of the 96-year old British monarch has sparked an outpouring of nostalgia from Queenslanders, thousands of whom have recollections of fleeting encounters with a Royal who made the state a favourite, visiting eight times since 1954.
Mr Beattie, who was speaking from the US yesterday, vividly recalls the last 2002 Royal visit which included trips to Coolum and Cairns.
That trip came as Australia was still dealing with the fallout from the 1999 referendum where voters rejected a proposal for an Australian republic.
Mr Beattie says Queen Elizabeth expressed no hostility whatsoever to the notion of an Australian Republic.
But the Monarch, in conversations with the then Premier, clearly expressed her desire that, if Australia did go down the Republican road, the nation remained in the Commonwealth in the manner that republics have been allowed to be Commonwealth countries since the 1949 “London Declaration.’’
Mr Beattie also recalled, with some amusement, the deep anxiety around a planned “meet the people’’ walk at Roma Street.
“As a Labor Government we had decided to ditch the traditional black tie affair and instead have the Queen meet people at Roma Street,’’ he said.
“And the Queen was really keen on the idea.’’
However, Queensland’s early March weather had other ideas.
The rain began pelting down just as the meet-and-greet was to start.
There was a bit of confusion among Royal officials as to whether the Monarch be allowed to go out in the rain, but it was agreed the event should go ahead.
“And then the rain stopped, just as she went out,’’ Mr Beattie said.
”She met the people, they loved her, she loved them, and then, just as she left, the rain started again.
“Call it divine intervention, call it Royal intervention if you like, but I have never seen anything like it.’’
Ms Bligh has vivid memories of the October 2011 Royal visit by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, their last visit to the sunshine state.
The 2011 visit was part of a wider national tour, but was also designed to allow the Royals to inspect reconstruction progress following the 2011 Summer of Disaster and to personally meet flood victims.
“People had come from hundreds of kilometres, some of them slept at South Bank just to get a glimpse of the Royals,’’ Ms Bligh recalls.
As the Royal couple sailed up the Brisbane River in a leased yacht, the then Premier remembers listening to the conversations between the Queen and the Duke, and being reminded they were just like an ordinary English couple.
“They were saying things like how they remembered seeing the bridge lit up from their hotel room on their last visit, and how they remembered this or that building or landmark, just as any travelling couple might’’ Ms Bligh recalls.
“But the Queen brought real vigour and energy to every appointment she had that day.’’
Later, as the Queen was ushered into a private room away from the television cameras to meet with flood victims, Ms Bligh witnessed the Monarch’s capacity for empathy and connection.
“She really knew and understood what her role was _ to listen, to empathise with these people who had been through so much.
“She could talk with them easily, recalling the things she had seen from the footage of the floods which had gone around the globe, and she showed real compassion and understanding about what they had been through.’’
Sallyanne Atkinson, Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 1985 to 1991, was a Brownie not yet in her teens when she first saw the Queen in 1954.
“I was waving a flag outside the Roma Street Railway Station,’’ she recalls.
“We had been bussed in from Southport where I was at school along with a whole lot of other kids.’’
Less than a decade later, as a young journalist working on the Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph in 1963, she was dispatched to The Northern Territory to cover the Royal visit in the north.
“The two male journalists they had sent up there had had a punch up so they sent me at the last minute_ the least likely one to cause trouble I suppose.’’
Twenty years later Ms Atkinson who was a councillor spoke with the Queen at the 1982 Commonwealth Games and then, six years later, found herself at lunch with the Monarch during Brisbane’s Expo 88.
She recalls looking at the ferris wheel which was visible behind the Queen through a large window and realising it had stalled.
“I pointed it out and the Queen said, ‘anyone who rides on one of those things deserves to get stuck.’’
It was delivered in an amused rather than mean spirited manner, and Ms Atkinson’s impressions of the Queen remain that of a warm and authentic soul.
Ms Atkinson said many more senior members of the Commonwealth remembered a speech the Queen made on her 21st birthday while touring South Africa with her parents.
The young Royal declared in that speech that the Commonwealth could “go forward together with an unwavering faith, a high courage, and a quiet heart.’’
“I always remember her remark about having a “quiet heart,’’ Ms Atkinson said.
“I think she was a very real person, an authentic person, one who knew she had to relate to people and who did so very well.’’
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