Black and white photograph of a group of young Cadets and adults in uniform on a carnival parade float. The Cadets hold up trophies. Behind them is a crowd of onlooking lining the road.

Tracy Kane

Joined 1981

Hitchin Nursing Cadet Division, Hertfordshire

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Black and white photograph of Queen Elizabeth II being greeted by a group of young Cadets and adults in uniform. They are presenting the Queen with a small bunch of roses.
Visit by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother to Selby Abbey, Yorkshire, for a service to commemorate the bi-centenary of American Independence, 1976 Image courtesy of the Museum of the Order of St John (10479)
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Transcript

The Queen Mother coming to the Queen Mother Theatre to open it. We invited Cadets from Stotfold and, yeah, from Letchworth and from Stevenage, so it wasn’t just Hitchin there. We were all nicely on parade. And the Queen Mother, with all her, you know, guards and everything around her, literally broke free through the group and said, “I have to go and speak to St John Ambulance.” I was quite impressed with first of all to see her just literally walk through these guards, who was like, where’s she going? But she was insistent she came over and spoke to us. Unfortunately, being the tallest I was right at the end of our line and I had a lot of Scouts next to me who were all barging to get through and see, so she didn’t walk all the way down to me, she stopped a little bit short of me. But she was talking to us all as a unit and obviously talking direct to my mum, who was the Area Unit Manager. So yeah, probably one of the more memorable ones.

Excerpt courtesy of Tracy Kane