Extra Information From Quiz Committee:
The Sentinel Review of June 7 noted that King George VI ‘was dressed in the undress uniform of a field marshall and the Queen wore a charming pearl gray
ensemble’. Photos also showed her wearing ‘a hat of matching gray straw’ tilted at a fashionable angle. The 10 minute stop was barely enough for
handshakes, the presentation of flowers to the Queen, a quick speech from Mayor J.A. Lewis, and a brief chat with some of the 400 Great War veterans
there proudly on parade. Soon the busy Royal couple were off again to the next town. The next day they would be heading for Washington for a 4-day
State Visit with U.S. President Roosevelt. By June 13 they would be crossing back into New Brunswick, to visit the Maritimes and then home by boat to
England.
The Canadian visit had begun in Quebec City, on May 17. By the time the Canadian Tour was over, the type 6400 and four other giant locomotives had
hauled the Royal Train 4,212 miles across Canada to Vancouver and the Pacific Coast, then back.
The North American visit had been timed to raise morale in its Empire and support from its friends for a Great Britain increasingly concerned about an
impending war in Europe. World War II began 3 months later.
Expected at noon, a giant streamlined steam locomotive, type 6400, pulled the royal train into the CNR station an hour late. It had been delayed by
the enthusiastic welcome the Royal couple had received all along the route from London, visited by them that morning. Already, King George VI and Queen
Elizabeth were standing on a viewing platform at one end of their carriage, waving to the crowd standing on any vantage point or seated in viewing
stands erected east of the station.
Sources:
- Woodstock Public Library, ‘Visits of State - 1939’, history archives;
- Daily Sentinel-Review, June 6-7, 1939 (Woodstock Public Library microfilm)
- Doug M. Symons, ‘The Village That Straddled A Swamp’ (Oxford Historical Society, Woodstock Public Library)