Hunt for Fifties schoolgirl whose poem delighted the Queen 70 years on
THE search is on for a pensioner who wrote a poem about the Queen in the early years of her reign.
Amy Winterbottom, then aged 14, wrote ‘Home Again’ for her school magazine in 1954 to mark the Queen’s spectacularly successful tour of Commonwealth countries.
From November 1953 to May 1954 she visited the West Indies, Australasia, Asia, and Africa, covering 44,000 miles.
On the colossal trip she was accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, and, according to the State Library of New South Wales, when the 27-yearold Queen sailed into Sydney Harbour ‘she practically stopped the nation.’
In an eight-week tour of Australia she visited 57 towns and cities.
Tumultuous crowds and an approving press tracked her journey. It was also noticed by young Amy. She wrote a poem about it for her school magazine. Home Again celebrates the return of the young monarch after her long absence abroad.
Now, nearly 70 years later, the poem has touched the heart of the Queen after a simple twist of fate.
It began when former M.E.N. photographer, Bill Batchelor, attended an open day at his old school, the former Varna Street School, which became Higher Openshaw County Secondary.
Bill said: “The building is now Grade II listed and no longer a school. The open day was organised by the new occupiers, Rogue Artists’ Studios. It was not a reunion of former pupils, just a chance for locals to see what changes have been made to the building. The open days on the 14th/15th May coincided with my trip back to my old home in Poynton so I was able to combine my return with a visit to the school.
“When I first heard of the open day on a Facebook post I remembered that I still had the first relaunched school magazine from 1954 and a second magazine from 1955, the year I left school, and joined the M.E.N. as a messenger boy in the editorial department.
“On reading my copies of the magazine it brought back some lost memories of my days at school but in particular in the later pages was a poem written by my classmate Amy Winterbottom in which she wrote about the Queen’s first Commonwealth tour beginning in November 1953 and her ‘joyous’ return – Amy’s words – in May 1954.
“I decided I could not let the poem go unnoticed in this Jubilee year so I wrote a letter to Her Majesty The Queen.”
He said in his letter it would be an honour if he were able to tell everyone attending the open day that ‘Your Majesty may have read Amy’s 1954 poem in this your Jubilee year.’ He sent his letter to Windsor
Castle on March 18. “Almost two months to the day, on 23rd May, a letter postmark Buckingham Palace dropped into my postbox. Addressed to me personally, it was headed Windsor Castle and written by a lady in waiting. It said ‘The Queen wishes me to thank you for your letter in which you enclosed extracts from your old school magazine which was launched in 1934 and re-launched after the war in 1954 by headmaster of Higher Openshaw Secondary School, Mr Trickett.” It added: “Her Majesty was interested to see the joyful poem composed all those years ago written by Amy Winterbottom. Her Majesty greatly appreciates your message of congratulations in this, The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Year.”
Bill, 81, who now lives in Bournemouth, said: “The letter, I thought, was a wonderful reply but it left me in a quandary. How can I tell Amy
that HRH has read her poem from all those years ago? I hadn’t seen or had any contact with Amy since we both left school.”
He started to make inquiries and was told by another old classmate, Vicky Davenport, that Amy moved to Blackpool with her parents after leaving school, and later emigrated to Australia in the 1960s. “I researched a family history website and found that an Amy Winterbottom married an Edwin Wagstaff in Blackpool in 1958. There’s another entry on an Australian website with an address for the couple living in New South Wales in 1977.
“I have recently posted a letter to the present occupier at that address in NSW and am hoping for a reply with some news or even a forwarding address.”
Your Platinum Jubilee celebrations: Pages 4&5