A right royal welcome in 1979
WHATEVER happened to the young people in this photograph?
We’re talking about the boys and girls, not a youthful looking Prince Charles who was visiting our region on this day 40 years ago.
Here we see him at Shipley Hall, Byker, where he met pupils from Glebe School, Killingworth, and their teacher Maureen Hughes.
The prince’s visit, which coincided with plummeting temperatures in the North East, also took in Gypsies’ Green Stadium in South Shields, and British Gas in Cramlington, where security guards outnumbered wellwishers because it was so cold.
Much water has passed under the bridge for the prince who was 30 years old in February 1979.
At a time when the tabloid press was linking the then bachelor with a string of eligible young ladies, his doomed marriage to Princess Diana, and his later union with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, lay in the future.