Former Blackpool MP shares his memories of The Queen

Mr Marsden, who is also a historian and former editor of History Today, met the Queen at Buckingham Palace and also Prince Charles on several other occasions.

He said: “The passing of the Queen is a huge sadness - made more poignant because for many of us (I was a Coronation Year baby) in Blackpool, Lancashire and across the UK she has been with us all our lives.

"We ve grown up with her as a rock of incredible service but also adaptability through 70 years of unprecedented changes and challenges.”

Memories

Mr Marsden served as a Labour MP from 1997 to 2019.

He added: “I met her, as many other MPs have done , in a reception in Buckingham Palace where I was at the end of the line to be presented to the Queen and Prince Philip in their throne room."I went out into the corridor with others to be given a drink and looking at one of the pictures I heard behind my back ‘and what do you think of that one’. I turned round and it was the Queen with a mischievous smile - she had with Philip snuck up on us and I had to respond very quickly!”

Lancashire’s special relationship

He continued: "The special relationship of the monarchy with Lancashire ever since Henry IV in 1399 linked its duchy with the Crown has been symbolised for those 70 years in the dinner toast ‘The Queen , the Duke of Lancaster’.

"I believe historians will single her out as, a unique world figure, a woman of faith and bravery, who used her international profile and position to be a wise conciliator , especially between the UK and Ireland and the Commonwealth.

"Right to the end in her last years , not least in her messages of hope through the traumas of Covid, those were her hallmarks . Thank goodness she was able to see the warmth of her peoples in her final,Platinum Jubilee.”