By KATH GANNAWAY
IT was 60 years ago on Friday that Queen Elizabeth attended the Sunday service at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Warburton.
Len McLean still gets a little emotional at the memory of that very special day, but is also cheeky enough to tease “I was the only person in the church who didn’t stand up”.
Len was the organist. And, it’s safe to assume that the young Queen would have been happy to concede that bit of protocol for the beautiful music that greeted her as she walked down the aisle with her husband Prince Phillip, as tradition dictates, behind her.
“She had been queen for two years at the time and doing the tour of New Zealand and Australia that she had been planning when her father died,” Len recalled.
“It was decided that on the long weekend they would bring her up to O’Shannassy Lodge which was used at that time by the MMBW (Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works) Commissioners for their meetings.”
Len had been in Warburton for just a year and had started playing the organ at the church in the October of 1953.
“In January, the minister (Reverend Alexander Hilliard) confided in me that the Queen was going to attend the church “ … and it’s all hush, hush, because she needs to have a rest,” he recalls.
“I was told I would be playing the organ and only the regular members of St Andrew’s Church congregation would be invited.”
Apart from the two church elders and Len, no-one else was to know, and he guarded the impending visit as if it was a state secret.
Church members got an order of service on the day that secured them a place in the pews, and had information on what was expected of them.
Len chose Handel’s Messiah to welcome the Queen and had practised it so many times, he says he really wasn’t at all nervous.
His future wife Dina was there too, a 19-year-old standing in the crowd that had gathered outside St Andrew’s to see the royal couple.
They each have their separate memories of the day, keep a photograph of Queen Elizabeth stepping out of the little timber church in pride of place at their Yarra Junction home and say they still have the greatest admiration for her after all these years.
It wasn’t all about Her Majesty however. They have some lovely anecdotes to share, such as seeing Earl Spencer who was equerry to the Queen but became more famous in later years as Princess Diana’s father, memories of little Sue Buller who presented the flowers and now works at the local newsagency, and the two ladies whose fashion sense was so astute that they chose the same outfits – much to their horror.
Len still plays the organ, perhaps, by his own admission, not as good as the day he played for Queen Elizabeth, and I bet he can still keep a secret too.
