Queen Elizabeth II dies at age 96. Video / Getty / AP / NZ Herald
When beautiful young Queen Elizabeth II made the first trip to New Zealand by a reigning monarch, Kiwis polished their shoes and practised their bows and curtsies and yes ma'ams.
Countless thousands lined streets and crowded into civic spaces for a glimpse of the queen and her husband Prince Philip on their 39-day tour of the country from late December 1953, when she was 27.
It was the height of our royal fervour. By 2002, during the last of the Queen's 10 visits to New Zealand, no more than several thousand people, and at some events just a few hundred, turned up at the 75-year-old sovereign's public outings.
Coralie Fenton, 14, shows Queen Elizabeth her Royal Visit medal during the 1953 Royal Tour of New Zealand. Photo / File
In 1953 New Zealand was mostly very British and the weakening of our economic, political and cultural ties to European Britain was still decades away.
As Elizabeth and Philip sailed into Auckland's Waitematā Harbour in the royal ship Gothic they were welcomed by the firing of a salute from the gun battery at North Head, although only later was it revealed that one of the guns didn't fire.
Wearing a lime-green summer frock as she stepped off the ship on a grey, drizzly day, the Queen looked, to the Herald's wharf-side reporter: "... lovely and radiant and exceedingly young."
Herald report, December 24, 1953, of the Queen's arrival in New Zealand the day before. Source / Herald archives
The Queen later told a civic reception at the Auckland Town Hall that she and Philip had "both been deeply moved this morning".
"It has indeed been an inspiring experience for us to travel across two vast oceans, from one side of the world to the other, and to find ourselves not in a foreign land and amongst alien people but at home with our kinsmen."
At the Auckland Domain, 16,000 children gathered to acclaim her. At Tīrau in the Waikato, 10,000 people turned out, at Stratford in Taranaki another 10,000, and at Cambridge, "tens of thousands", the Herald wrote.
People waited hours for a glimpse and some brought a wooden box to stand on or a periscope for a better royal view.
Crowds wait to see Queen Elizabeth at St Mary's Cathedral, Auckland, December 27, 1953. Photo / File
Big crowds were everywhere and the royal car was sometimes mobbed by the throng. It was estimated that three-quarters of the population saw the Queen.
The royal tour visited more than 40 towns and cities, travelling by train, plane, car and ship as New Zealand showed off mainly its agricultural prowess, but also some of its scenic wonders, including the Waitomo Caves and Milford Sound, and above all its loyalty.
On December 24, the day after the royals' arrival, New Zealand experienced its worst train crash, at Tangiwai in the central North Island, with the death of 151 people. The Queen was briefed by Prime Minister Sid Holland and Prince Philip attended the burial service in Wellington for 21 unidentified victims.
Herald report of the Queen's visit to Hamilton and King Korokī at Tūrangawaewae. Source / Herald archives
The Queen's later trips to New Zealand were all much shorter and the population's royal enthusiasm gradually waned, while protests spread. She attended Treaty of Waitangi 150th anniversary events, the James Cook bicentenary, the Auckland and Christchurch Commonwealth Games, and the 1995 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Auckland.
Probably the closest anyone has come to assassinating the Queen was in New Zealand - in Dunedin in 1981 - when Christopher Lewis, who hadn't secured an ideal sniper's position nor sufficiently powerful rifle, fired a .22 bullet that went harmlessly over the crowd. He was charged only with possessing a rifle in public but official records released later said Lewis did intend to kill the Queen.
A non-lethal attack, however, reached its target when two Treaty of Waitangi protesters threw eggs towards the Queen and Philip, who were waving from an open-top vehicle to 40,000 schoolchildren assembled to greet them at Ellerslie Racecourse in Auckland. One egg smashed on the windscreen and spattered the Queen's handbag and pink woollen coat. Two young women were sentenced to six months in jail for assault.
"It was terrible," said Betty McPherson, who witnessed the egg-throwing. "I grabbed one of the girls and held her until the police arrived."
Four people were each fined $100 for baring their buttocks at the Queen in Christchurch. A man in Hawkes Bay was fined $150 for trying to do the same thing, a whakapohane, but he had mis-timed his trouser-drop and the Queen's car had already cruised past.
The egg story was front-page news as "an ugly incident" in London's Times newspaper and the tabloids had a field day with the protests during what was dubbed the Queen's "Bottoms Up Down Under" tour.
The Queen, however, made light of the Ellerslie attack, telling attendees at a Beehive banquet: "I should say that I prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast."
Queen Elizabeth receives lavender flowers from pupils of Tuahiwi School in North Canterbury.
Her final visit to New Zealand, in February 2002, to mark the 50th anniversary of her reign, was prefaced by the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, who was in London, describing the British monarchy as an absurdity for a South Pacific country.
"The idea of a nation such as New Zealand being ruled by a head of state some 20,000km away is absurd," Clark said, according to a Guardian report. "It is inevitable that New Zealand will become a republic. It is just a matter of when the New Zealand people are bothered enough to talk about it - it could be 10 years, or it could be 20 years, but it will happen."
After being greeted by Clark following the Prime Minister's return home, the Queen said during a banquet at Parliament that New Zealand was a very different country from the one she visited in 1953.
"I have admired your increasing energy and confidence. I know this process of evolution will continue as you, the people of New Zealand, map out your path for the future in your own time and in your own way."
