From the Observer archive, 26 November 1961: Queen causes a frenzy in Freetown

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2013/nov/24/queen-causes-frenzy-sierra-leone-freetown

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The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh this morning landed in "ancient and loyal" Sierra Leone. The country, which has been independent since April, welcomed her as Queen of Sierra Leone and the royal yacht and the car used by the Queen both flew a new royal standard, which consisted of the arms of the country charged with the initial E and a royal crown.

The royal yacht, escorted by two destroyers and a frigate, sailed into the vast steamy estuary that is one of the world's great anchorages. And as the solemn and lovely line of boats came towards the quay it could be seen that they were being followed by a sort of waterborne riot. Dozens of small fishing boats were being furiously paddled in the wake of the yacht. They were decorated with pieces of coloured cloth flown from tall poles.

When the Britannia was moored, they gathered at her stern, some in real danger of being crushed, bumping wildly together, and the ceremonies at the quayside were conducted against a cheerful background of strident shouting and occasional song.

Freetown is a hot and crowded place that wears its vegetable decay and tropical dankness with an air. Many of its houses are old and eccentric. They look as if they had tried to be mansions and had given up somewhere in the process. Wooden top floors perch precariously on massive stone foundations. Proud sweeps of stairs – all dark with lichen and damp – rise up to dark little doorways. The windows may be warped but they retain a hint of 18th-century elegance. Sad, overgrown cemeteries are almost as common as Gothic chapels.

With handsome men in long flowing robes and sequined caps, with beautiful women in turbans as light as air and winged like birds, with countless, tiny, half-naked scampering children who play and shriek by the roadside, with solemn schoolboys who look as if they had come from a cathedral school, the town has a gaily, improbably, wholly beguiling Ronald Firbank air about it.

Sierra Leone is not particularly angered – or exercised – about anything. It is not rich. It tends to follow the political lead of Nigeria and, if only for that reason, will probably in the end turn into a republic. There were no tensions, no political overtones to this visit.

Even the opposition, a large part of which was retained in gaol during the independence celebrations and is protesting at the postponement of the Freetown elections, wants to do nothing that would mar the first visit of a reigning sovereign to what was the oldest of the west African colonies.

After the astonishing and wholly enjoyable chaos of Liberia, Sierra Leone seemed to be asserting its British tradition with the most careful order. The prime minister, Sir Milton Margai, in a long white robe, sat in the second car beside the governor-general, Sir Maurice Dorman, who was feathered, ribboned and bemedalled.

There was the Action Group of the majority party, in a uniform that consisted of an inscribed singlet, who bellowed "Welcome" with military unanimity. Lebanese and Indian merchants in Kissy Street had hung out special homemade banners that incorporated their own national flags.

The Queen was given a gold key to the city by the mayor, who ignored the climate and wore the red robes and cocked hat of English municipal splendour. While the duke went to a dam site in the afternoon, the Queen went to the stadium to present new colours to the Royal Sierra Leone Regiment.

The new Queen's Colour embodies the new flag of the country; the old one, which was trooped for the last time, was based on the Union flag. The new colours, placed upon piled drums, were blessed by the imam of the Muslim Congress – "In thy holy name, O Allah, most gracious, most merciful" – by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Freetown and Bo, by the president of the United Christian Council and by the Anglican Bishop of Freetown.

<em>This is an edited extract</em>

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