WHEN the Queen first visited Swindon it was a jubilee year but she wasn’t the Queen – and the jubilee was our own.

Most people with an interest in Swindon history know about Her Majesty’s visits to the town as sovereign.

On Friday, July 23, 1954, she came to Swindon by train before travelling on to present new colours to the Royal Welch Fusiliers at Wroughton Airfield. Crowds gathered to cheer as she was driven through Swindon.

In 1971 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh made an official visit to open the Wyvern Theatre, part of a civic centre costing £7.5m. It was the first official visit by a reigning monarch since 1924, when the itinerary of King George V and Queen Mary included the Railway Works.

In November of 1997, almost exactly 26 years later, Her Majesty’s next visit included appearances at Gorse Hill Infants’ School, the Brunel Plaza and Wharf Green, and she was met by cheering crowds throughout her time in the town.

Less than a year later, in October of 1998, Her Majesty opened the new Motorola factory at Groundwell.

There was another official visit pre-dating all of these, though, and also pre-dating Her Majesty’s accession to the throne.

In 1950, Swindon celebrated its own Golden Jubilee, marking the 50 years of official recognition as a borough. On Wednesday, November 15 of that year, the 24-year-old Princess Elizabeth visited the town.

On the front page of an Adver special edition, a journalist with severe comma addiction reported: “Cheering crowds, lining Swindon’s flag-bedecked streets today, gave Princess Elizabeth a Royal welcome when, honouring the borough in this, its Jubilee year, she opened the town’s Garden of Remembrance and the Moredon Playing Fields.”

The ceremony at the Garden of Remembrance in Queen’s Park was attended by civic dignitaries and more than 250 loved ones of the Fallen.

No aspect of the visit went unreported. We noted: “Princess Elizabeth was dressed in a lime green coat and green hat trimmed with green velvet. She had brown suede shoes and carried a brown handbag. On her coat she had a floral brooch in coloured stone. She also wore a triple ring of pearls.”

Like her grandfather before her, the Princess visited the Railway Works, and even drove Star Class loco Princess Elizabeth from the engine weighbridge outside the erecting shop to what was then known as Junction Station but is now simply Swindon Station.