Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: Eastbourne resident remembers royal encounter at the age of six

An Eastbourne resident has shared her experience of meeting the royal family in the 1940s.

Shirley Silversides, known as Shirley Anne Knowles at the time, was at Gwelo Station in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, in 1947 when she encountered the royals. The Queen Mother, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret alighted at the station.

Shirley said she was at the station because she was the first patient in Rhodesia to receive penicillin due to a burst appendix with peritonitis and b-coli infection. She was in a wheelchair at the time.

Shirley presented the posy to Princess Margaret and said they were ‘charming as ever’.

• Do you have an experience with the Queen you’d like to share as we approach the jubilee? Please let us know at [email protected]

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