Wigan Album

They all look very eager to see the queen too with infectious smiles, and the lad is being innovative by making his own flag from a twig and a flyer.

I have this photo in a book and have always loved the delighted faces of the people on it, especially the children. I would only have been about eighteen months old at the time but in the late 1950s when I started school I can remember wearing a similar coat and bonnet to the little girl at the front.
When I was nine or ten, (1961-62), I went to the John McCurdy Hall which had been hired by Ince Wagon Works, (where my Dad worked), for the employees' children's Christmas Party.

All the children from St John’s School were taken to the corner at the top of Wallgate and Library Street to watch the Queen drive past, it was so exciting.
I’m sure there was a picture of us in one of the local papers.
I doubt such scenes will ever be repeated.