Aldeburgh Museum to create a film of the Queen's visits to town in her honour

Aldeburgh has seen multiple visits from members of the royal family over the years.

The Queen opens the new in Aldeburgh festival concert hall at Snape in 1967
Author: Jasmine OakPublished 16th Sep 2022
Last updated 16th Sep 2022

Aldeburgh museum plans to create a film of the Queen's visit to the seaside town in the next few months.

Aldeburgh Museum is housed in the Moot Hall which was built around about 1530, soon after Aldeburgh got its charter in 1527.

This Sunday they're participating in the Heritage Open Day program and there's free entry to anybody who would like to visit.

The seaside town has seen multiple visits from members of the royal family over the years.

Tony Bone the chair of Aldeburgh Museum told us about two occasions when the queen visited - for the opening of the concert hall in Snape Maltings in 1967 and its re-opening in 1970 after a major fire.

"With the unfortunate demise of our Dear Queen, we've now decided to make a film of her visit, coming here to Aldeburgh and her immediate family. For example, Prince Philip and various other people in her direct family.

"So we hope to get that done in the next few months. But this event has sort of triggered us to do that, so we'll have it on display in months to come.

"They wanted to create the film because obviously we're all a bit shocked by the Queen's death and we celebrated her Jubilee not very long ago.

"In June and at that time, we had an exhibition of photographs which covered not just the Queen but also previous Queens as well.

"So we covered things like celebration of Queen Victoria's Jubilees within the town, and so on.

"So we thought it was particularly of great interest to people visiting the museum and local people in the town as well."

Tony remembers watching Queen Elizabeth's coronation and told us what it was like when he found out the Queen had passed.

"It was a very definite sense of loss because she's been a constant point there, not for all my life because I remember her coronation.

"In 1953, I remember my parents got a television with a very small screen and we and the neighbours were gathered around this television, seeing her coronation.

"And I remember, at school, we went to see the coronation in the cinema and.. everybody (who) was from the school was sent to watch it.

"So it's been a constant point of stability really within the country and she's always behaved properly.

"it just seems a great change really... We're perhaps in a more uncertain future, but she's been a constant rock there, rock and support through some of the difficult times that we've had and the good times too."

"I suppose it was very exciting for me when I was a child because I've never seen anything like that before.

"Now we are saying it for a new monarch, but I'm seeing it obviously as an adult and it's very, very different. I don't know, probably my grandparents, for instance, would have seen it much then as I see it today."

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