A Royal Train was pulling into Stalybridge for the first time ever and in the station booking hall a local alderman was nervously waiting to make history.

It was the morning of Wednesday, July 18, 1946 and soon thousands of people in the town and in Hyde, would be getting a close up view of the King and Queen.

But not as close as Alderman H. P. M. Beames, chairman of Cheshire County Council and 11-year-old Beryl Broome.

Ald. Beames was receiving his CBE and the investiture was taking place not at Buckingham Palace, but at a station booking hall, which was definitely a first time at Stalybridge.

King George VI opened the leather case holding the award and with a smile and few words of congratulations, presented it to the alderman.

Minutes earlier Christ Church School girl Beryl, from Set Street, Stalybridge, dressed in pale blue with a blue ribbon in her hair had given a welcoming bouquet of flowers to the queen.

The Royal couple had stepped off the train to be greeted by the station master George Corke.

The platform and the rest of the station had been beautifully decorated, by Alan Falconer, superintendent of Stamford Park and his staff, with the Royals praising the displays.

Before leaving on their 80 mile tour of north Cheshire, their Royal Highnesses met the Mayors and Mayoresses of Stalybridge, Hyde and Dukinfield and other dignitaries.

The Royal motor cavalcade drove through Stalybridge and Hyde as far as Pole Bank, before crossing into the borough of Stockport.

Where there were crowds it slowed to 10 miles an hour, so people could have a better view.

Factories that lined their route allowed workers to join the crowds, dairymen delivering milk from carts drawn by horses with braided manes, waved as the cars went by.

It was a sunshine and showers day and at some points along the route crowds were sparse, but there was a rousing reception at Hyde, with thousands of people packing the decorated streets from Newton to Gee Cross, many waving flags.

More than a thousand children were reported to be cheering in Bennett Street and close on 1,500 from schools in Longdendale and Hyde, who were given reserved places on Dowson Road. After six years of war people wanted to celebrate the dawn of a new era and they were taking to the streets to do it.

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