A trip down memory lane: Queen Elizabeth with Prince Philip waving to the crowd as she enters the compound of Dewan Sri Pinang.
GEORGE TOWN: Datin Seri Mahmuda Bibi, who is now 80, was a teacher at the Methodist Boys’ School in 1972 when she was assigned to bring her students to greet the arrival of the Queen at the Governor’s residence here.
When she arrived, the crowd at the governor’s residence’s main gate was massive.
“I decided to go alone to the other gate.
“As I waited, the Queen’s motorcade passed by me slowly and stopped. Then, just a metre away from me, the Queen lowered the window, waved and smiled at me.
“The Queen was wearing a blue dress and white pearls around her neck. She looked beautiful,” said Mahmuda, the wife of civil society activist Datuk Seri Dr Anwar Fazal.
“The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, also waved and smiled at me as I stood with my umbrella,” she said.
The passing of Queen Elizabeth II has left a wave of fond memories for Penangites who had the privilege to meet the British monarch in person when she visited Penang.
The British monarch visited Malaysia three times. Her first and longest visit was in 1972, when she toured several Malaysian states.
Her other visits were in conjunction with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1989 and the Commonwealth Games in 1998.
Rose Charities International president and former New Straits Times photojournalist Datuk Lawrence Cheah, 80, remembers the visits well.
“I was assigned to cover her visit and, looking at her, I felt she was very friendly, pretty and elegant too,” he said.
He was in his 20s and was thrilled when he was assigned to cover the Queen at the Governor’s residence in Jalan Residensi.
He said he took photographs of the Queen and Prince Philip at a garden party held in their honour.
Veteran politician Tan Sri Mohd Yussof Latiff described the Queen as a cheerful monarch loved by all her subjects.
“She was a pillar of the Commonwealth who was respected by many leaders in the world,” he said, adding that the Queen’s demise was one of great sorrow felt not only by the British people but also the Commonwealth.
During her stop in Penang, the Queen visited Penang Hill, which was the first British hill station in Asia.
“It was said that in 1788, Francis Light (the English captain who founded Penang) ordered a path up the hill and named it Flagstaff Hill,” said Penang Hill Corporation general manager Datuk Cheok Lay Leng.
The Queen also visited the Penang High Court and Dewan Sri Pinang.
She was accompanied by then chief minister Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu and his wife, ex-Penang police chief Tan Khim Heng, and Earl Louis Mountbatten, the Queen’s cousin.
