May I update your report last week on the Queen’s overnight stay on the royal train on WSR lines near Norton Manor camp.

This was in fact the fourth such overnight stay by a serving monarch on the WSR lines.

Your report did not mention the very first such visit, in the early months of the First World War. In June 1915, King George V and Queen Mary had visited wounded troops in Bristol and then travelled to stay overnight in the Bishop’s Lydeard sidings en route to Devonport Naval Dockyards. 

Extensive preparations were made for the visit; the Free Press reported that even the stocks of coal in the station bunkers were painted white.

The following morning, the crowds who had gathered on the road bridge over the line saw the royal couple make a short promenade along the platform.

Before the train departed for Plymouth, the village schoolchildren, accompanied by their vicar, sang three verses of the National Anthem.

Jeff Cox, Redway, Porlock.