The Perfect View

Jane Hollington describes not just one trip to see The Queen arrive at the Derby but two – the second in 1999 with her son – and shares memories of growing up in Kingswood and family life since 1958.

When I was six months of age I moved from Lancashire to Beech Drive, Kingswood, with my parents and elder brother Andrew. My brother attended St Christopher’s Prep School for boys in Warren Drive, which closed in the early 1960s when it was turned into private properties. For two years I attended Miss Yvonne’s Nursery School at Kingsbarns, Waterhouse Lane (now a new block of flats opposite Forest Drive).

Our Mother used to walk me to Nursery. We walked round the back of the house and climbed up an outside staircase into a room built above the garage. It was always exciting to walk round the corner of the property and see the sheep at the back of the large garden watching us arrive.

Derby Day used to be on the first Wednesday of June, and The Queen always travelled on the Tattenham Corner line to the Derby on the Royal Pullman, passing through Kingswood station on her way. Miss Yvonne took all the children on the short walk down to the station where we were instructed to stand in a line on the platform. The steam train was certainly like no other that came through the station, I remember it was spotlessly clean and shining, and looked very special. We did as we were told and waved and cheered as the train slowly went past. As most of the windows on the train had their curtains closed, we never actually saw Her Majesty, but I imagined the young and beautiful Queen to be standing in a long silver dress wearing her crown on her head and waving to us with her white gloved hands. It was all very magical to know that, though unseen, The Queen had, for a short time, only been a few feet away from us. In 1999 I took our young son, Dan, to see the Queen on Derby Day, which by then was held on the first Saturday in June. We caught the train from Kingswood to Tattenham Corner before the Royal Pullman was due and waited at the station for it to arrive. The red carpet went the full length of the platform, we heard the doors of the train being opened and slammed shut, and several distinguished gentlemen looking very elegant in top hat and tails appeared. Then we saw Her Majesty looking fabulous in a silk coat with matching hat. There were only a few of us waiting at the station to see The Queen, so we had the perfect view.