IN her Christmas message to the nation, the Queen described 2019 as a bit of a bumpy year and, unless you are a resident republican, you have to feel some sympathy for her. Because while she barely puts a foot out of place, others around her put theirs where they shouldn’t. As team players they frequently gift the ball to the opposition.

But it wasn’t always so, so come with me back to November 1989 – 30 years ago now, for Heaven’s sake – when Worcester’s streets were thronged, the crowds were cheering and the flags were waving as the Queen and Prince Philip made a near four hour visit to the city to pay tribute to the Queen’s Own Mercian Yeomanry, of which the Queen is Colonel-in-Chief, and unveil a plaque to open new £350,000 workshops at the cathedral.

Thousands of people greeted the Royal couple and you might just recognise yourself three decades later among this collection of photographs taken by Worcester News photographers on the day.

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The Royal Train arrived at Shrub Hill station at 11.10am, where the Queen was quickly out of the blocks to unveil a British Rail locomotive renamed The Queen’s Own Mercian Yeomanry and inspect BR’s travelling post office. The Royal cavalcade then travelled down Lowesmoor and City Walls Road to pass through Edgar Tower and on to College Green, where the Queen opened the new workshops for the £10m restoration operation on the Cathedral. There followed a tour of the building before an invited audience of 1,500, said to represent “a cross section of city life”. Lunch was then taken in the Guildhall with 200 special guests.

At 2.40pm it was back in the Royal car to drive down High Street, The Cross and Foregate Street to the Shirehall, where the Queen inspected a Guard of Honour on the forecourt before a private tea (if she had any room left after lunch) with members, families and old comrades of the QOMY.

At 3.45pm the Royal couple left Worcester to head back to London and a world in which Charles and Diana were still married, so were Anne and Mark Phillips and Andrew and Sarah Fergusson. Toe sucking, Jeffrey Epstein and a car crash in a road tunnel in Paris were black clouds still a very long way off.