Welcome, MA’AM
THE queen didn’t do much travelling when she was growing up and before the age of 21 hadn’t ventured much further from the UK mainland than the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England.
Then in 1947 she accompanied her parents on her first royal tour and first overseas journey to Southern Africa. It was the start of a prolific and often exhaustive tour regime.
Her Majesty would become the world’s most well-travelled head of state, circling the globe 42 times, covering an estimated 1,66 million kilometres on 261 officials visits to 126 nations and territories – some of them multiple times.
The Royal Yacht – the Firm’s official ocean-going vessel – logged more than one million nautical miles during more than four decades at sea, and royal flights covered many times that distance. Unlike most jetsetters, the queen rarely travelled overseas for pleasure, apart from a handful of trips connected to her beloved racehorses. For the queen, holidays were spent at Balmoral. Travels abroad were always a duty.
WELCOME TO SOUTH AFRICA
Cape Town’s infamous south-easter had blown itself out a day earlier and the mercury had risen to a sweltering 40 degrees that day in February 1947 when the royal family – King George, Queen Elizabeth and the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret – arrived to a 21-gun salute and 1 200 schoolchildren lined up on Signal Hill spelling out the word “Welcome”.
“It was a wonderful day as we approached Cape Town,” the princess later wrote to
