Queen Elizabeth's death: West Norfolk mourns monarch who had special bond with the borough and her home of Sandringham
The Queen had a special bond with West Norfolk and she is being remembered here as an employer, a neighbour and a friend as well as a monarch.
For some there will be very personal memories. The Queen might have poured tea for them at the local WI meeting, presented them with an award, or chatted with them on one of the many visits she made out and about in the community when she was staying at Sandringham.
Thousands will remember lining the path to Sandringham church when the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family walked to morning service.
Christmas just wouldn't have been Christmas without them.
The Queen spent her first Christmas at Sandringham when she was only a few months old and had many happy times here with her parents and sister.
They mixed freely with local people at garden fetes, cricket matches and when she became Queen her connections to West Norfolk strengthened.
Sandringham was her happy place. She loved her time here because it was one of the few places where she could relax and enjoy time out of the public eye. This place gave her a private life where she could walk her dogs, ride and drive through the parkland and catch up with families who worked on the estate. She would visit her pigeon lofts, the kennels and a favourite trip was to the stud to check up on the mares and foals.
It was always very informal and very obvious that she was enjoying herself here.
One day every year was kept for her own personal memories, Her father King George V1 was at Sandringham when he died on February 6, 1952, and this is where she chose to spend anniversaries of the day she acceded to the throne.
Sandringham was also where she made her first Christmas Day speech to the nation.
Her first Christmas break in West Norfolk after she became Queen was a harrowing time as she and the Duke of Edinburgh met families who had lost homes and friends in the devastating 1953 east coast floods.
And while Sandringham was essentially a Royal retreat, this set the pattern for all future winter visits to West Norfolk and although The Queen enjoyed some rare privacy she also set time aside to get out and about in the community.
It became a tradition for her to present prizes to children at Sandringham Church Sunday School, to high-achieving students at Lynn schools who were invited to Sandringham House to receive their awards, and to join Sandringham Women's Institute members at their monthly meeting.
She attended the WI with her mother and sister for many years and became president on the death of the Queen Mother.
It meant joining in with the meeting, listening to a guest celebrity speaker and pouring tea for fellow members.Her last visit to the January meeting would have been in 2019 when she joined in a Sandringham version of the TV quiz Pointless hosted by the branch guest that year, Alexander Armstrong.In 2020 she had to miss the meeting because she was suffering from a cold and, of course, in 2021 she was at Windsor.
As Honorary Air Commodore at RAF Marham, The Queen made regular visits to the West Norfolk base. In a mix of formal and informal engagements she met officers, air and ground crews, families, schoolchildren.
One of the most memorable visits was in 1991 when she met wives and families of crews involved in the Gulf War conflict. She was also there for RAF anniversary celebrations, to welcome new squadrons and to open the base's Sandringham Community Centre.
Her last visit was in February 2020, when she opened the Lightning operations centre for the newly arrived F35 jets. She was cheered on to the based by children from the Cherry Tree Academy and the Rainbow Day Care Centre.
Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital welcomed the Royal visitor several times.
Her visits included opening the Arthur Levin Day Surgery Centre in 1999 and the Macmillan Cancer Care Centre in 2002.
There were so many engagements over the years. She opened Park House Holiday Hotel for the disabled in 1987, Tapping House Home Hospice at Snettisham in 1992 and its new premises at Hillington in 2016, Thornham Village Hall in 2014 and Anmer Club some years earlier.
She visited factories including the former Campbells, schools including King Edward V11 at Lynn and Smithdon High School at Hunstanton, a housing complex at Dersingham and a medical surgery at Dersingham.
There were also visits to community groups and organisations spanning the generations.
In July 2019 she made a private visit to to the new Dersingham Village Centre to unveil a plaque and met some of the volunteers and groups that used the facility.
One of the more unusual was when she and the Queen Mother toured Lynn Mart in an icy1955 and warmed hearts by accepting an invitation into a family caravan for a glass of sherry.
Reluctant to upstage the Queen Mother, she only attended the annual Sandringham Flower Show a few times but always sent a raffle prize.
Most of her formal visits were during her winter break here but she came to Lynn in on a hot sunny day in August 1991 to give the Royal seal of approval to the £7 million Lynnsport Centre.
There were also private visits to Sandringham from time to time including a not-to-be-missed long weekend each April when she popped in at the stud to check progress on her mares and foals and, in some cases, to choose names for the newcomers.
Gundog trials were another favourite pursuit and she looked at her happiest walking through the undergrowth on the estate in waterproof jacket and boots. Sandringham's cocker spaniels championship was a must on her calendar.
The early months of 2020 were her last times here before she and Prince Philip had to isolate at Windsor from the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sandringham was where she held the 'crisis summit' with other members of her family when Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex announced their intentions to stand down from royal life.
Even when she was miles away at Windsor, she still had an interest in Sandringham and West Norfolk and Little Discoverers, based at Lynn, was one of several groups which received a generous donation from The Queen earlier this year.
She suffered very personal sadness in April, 2021, when her beloved husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, died, but she quickly continued with a busy schedule of appearances.
The Queen then had to pull out of some of her royal duties in the autumn because of health issues although she did take a helicopter flight to Sandingham for a quiet weekend early in November and it was said that she was determined to be back there for the traditional family Christmas.
The Queen was never going to be 'just like the rest of us', but thanks to Sandringham and wider West Norfolk her time here was as near as it could get.
Have you got a memory or a special photo of the Queen? Email newsdesk@lynnnews.co.uk