The towering monarch who captured hearts at Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation - and who was welcomed to Antrim by a deluge of rain!

IT’S almost 71 years since a very distinguished visitor stepped onto the (wet) tarmac at Nutt’s Corner back in June 1953.

She had captured the hearts of the nation while attending the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth just weeks before embarking on a tour of the UK.

The Press reported how Queen Salote III, the six-feet-three tall ruler of the Tonga Islands was greeted with a thunderclap and lighting, accompanied by heavy rain, as she stepped out on the runway at Nutt’s Corner.

Just as the BEA plane bringing her from Liverpool touched down on the runway, where a crowd of over 200 had gathered, the rain came on heavily and kept the Queen a prisoner in the aircraft for half an hour.

But through it all, the Queen kept smiling.

Eleven-year-old Gwyneth Finch, daughter of Airport Commander Mr H.P Finch OBE, who was ready to present a bouquet of roses, had to take shelter under a gangway.

And while all this was going on, in Belfast, just a few miles away, the city was apparently bathed in sunshine.

The Queen was greeted by dignitaries including the Minister for Finance and a representative of the British Council.

A large crowd also gathered to welcome her at the Midland Hotel in Belfast, where a special suite had been prepared, decorated with Ulster roses, lupins and sweet pea.

Also in the entourage was the Queen’s daughter in law Princess Mato, an aide to the Prime Minister and wife of the British Agent and Consul in Tonga.

A passenger on the flight remarked upon how pleasant the Royal was and how she had got out of the plane when it landed at the Isle of Man for 15 minutes, to greet a large crowd who had gathered.

Lady Brookborough, who was also there to greet the Queen, wore a borrowed fireman’s mackintosh to go forward and apologise for the Ulster weather.

The Belfast Telegraph reported: “But the Queen, wearing a neat grey coat, kept smiling and walking with a slight limp, due to an accident, went forward to her car through a miniature river flowing across the runway.”

“Officials at Nutt’s Corner said they had never before been out in such heavy rain.

“This is what the rain did to the official reception: Sent 40 children in light summer dresses from Straidhavern Primary School scampering for shelter in a hangar; forced a guard of honour of Fire Service personnel to run for shelter in a bus; Sent a member of the airport staff hurrying away in an effort to collect umbrellas; Kept members of the airport staff ‘prisoners’ in the building, instead of having a ‘close up’ view of the Queen on the runway.

However the busy schedule clearly took its toll.

As another organ reported: “Queen Salote is suffering from fatigue arrangements for a Government reception at Stormont have been cancelled.”

And the aforementioned accident?

“On Tuesday night the car in which Queen Salote was travelling from Edinburgh to Carlisle was in collision with another vehicle at Thornhill, Dumfrieshire, and was so badly damaged that Queen Salote had to complete her journey in a police car.

She later toured part of the Lake District before flying from Liverpool to Nutt’s Corner with the brief stop at the Isle of Man.

She was then ferried to Dublin, where it is assumed she had a slightly less damp arrival.

Queen Salote Tupou III ruled Tonga from 1918 until her death in 1965.

At the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, so the story goes, she arrived in an open carriage accompanied by a tiny man in frock coat and spats. Noel Coward, upon being asked who the man might be, famously responded: “That's her lunch.”

In a 1999 edition of Overseas magazine, Stanley Martin looked back at the Queen who won the heart's of a generation of British people with her rainy ride in the Coronation procession of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953.

Mr Martin eloquently explained her rapid rise to popularity and how she captured the hearts of the public and became a celebrity in her own right.

Yet again, rain was involved.

He wrote: “As a schoolboy, I watched the procession from the front row of the crowd in The Mall, where I had slept overnight, and woke to the news of the ascent of Everest by Hillary and Tenzing.

“In fact, the procession was made up of several small processions, including that of the ‘Colonial Rulers’; all ‘Highnesses’, except for the ‘Majesty’ of the Queen of Tonga, with an appropriate majestic figure and bearing.

“She sat in the first carriage, opposite the Sultan of Kelantan. On the way to Westminster Abbey, in the morning, all the carriages were open. On the return from the abbey, in the afternoon, it rained heavily and the only open carriage was that of the queen and the sultan.

“Whereas His Highness got very wet, Her Majesty was partly protected by the ample pink silk mantle of a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE), which proved to be an effective raincoat. She had no umbrella, however, and must therefore finished with soaking wet hair.

“The press was ecstatic and Queen Salote became a household name overnight. June babies were christened Charlotte (of which Salote is the Polynesian form), a racehorse was named after her and she was the subject of topical songs: ‘Linger longer, Queen of Tonga’.

“The Manchester Guardian wrote of ‘the magnificence of Her Majesty the Queen of Tonga, smiling broadly in a spiteful downpour and heartily waving a powerful bare arm, happy as though all the sun of the friendly islands were beating down’.

“The Daily Telegraph reported that she received biggest cheers of the day, except for The Queen herself and Sir Winston Churchill and that, later, a woman went up to her car in Knightsbridge and call out ‘Good luck. You were marvellous’.

“The Telegraph concluded that ‘Queen Salote, whose genial dignity matches her proportions, has won an extraordinary quantity of affection from the British people’. The Times described her as ‘the outstanding overseas figure of the celebrations’.

Overseas told how Queen Salote Tupou III was educated at the Diocesan High School for Girls in Auckland and succeeded her father, King George Tupou III, at the age of 18 - in 1918.

“ In the previous year, she had married her cousin, Prince Uilami (William) Tungi, who served as Prime Minister from 1923 until his death in 1941. In the Second World War, the resources of small Tonga were put at the Allied disposal: three Spitfires were paid for by the Tongan people and a detachment served in the Soloman Islands.

“Queen Salote received every honour that the monarch of the United Kingdom could confer on her.

“She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1932 and promoted, in 1945, to be a Dame Grand Cross, thus providing her with that pink mantle that was to be so useful eight years later.

When Queen Elizabeth II visited Tonga during her extensive Commonwealth tour towards the end of 1953, she made Queen Salote a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO). In 1965, the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George was opened to women and, shortly before her death in that year, Queen Salote was made the first Dame Grand Cross (GCMG).

“Her death caused great sadness in Tonga, the South Pacific, New Zealand (her second home), and Britain. Diabetes, pleurisy and, finally, cancer had gradually overcome her.

“It was a sick woman who sat on the veranda of the palace in Nuku'alofa on 30 July 1965 to watch the parade celebrating the longest reign in Tongan history. Her great, great grandfather King George Tupou I, had embraced Christianity before reigning from 1845 to 1893; the 'Grand Old Man of the Pacific' died at the age of 96.

“His great grandson and successor, King George Tupou II (Queen Salote's father), concluded the Treaty of Friendship and Protection with Britain in 1900, whereby the Friendly Islands (so named by Captain Cook) remained an independent kingdom under British protection.

“In early November 1965, Queen Salote, accompanied by her younger son, was flown in an RAF aircraft to Auckland for hospital treatment. A month later, her condition deteriorated and she died on 16 December, an hour before her elder son, because of aircraft delays, was able to reach her bedside.

“The funeral took place in Nuku'alofa on 23 December, following a lying-in-state characterised by the special Tongan high ritual of chiefly death: Koe takipo.

“Fires burned continually throughout the hours of darkness around the palace, with three attendants sitting on three of each burning torch. One attendant held the torch horizontally in the direction the body lay while the other two knocked away the ash to keep the torch burning. For the same period, no food could be prepared inside the palace itself or the grounds and only the new king could eat in the palace, from food cooked outside it.

“The population of Nuku'alofa was doubled by mourners from the outlying islands, bearing gifts of food, mats and bark cloths for their new ruler.

More than 200 men carried the bier from the palace to the royal tombs where the later rites were conducted, according to custom, behind a closed wall of bark cloth screen 150 metres long around the whole tomb.

“Queen Elizabeth II was represented at the funeral by the Govenor-General of New Zealand and flags flew at half-mast in London on that day.

The links of the Tongan royal family with Britain have been firmly maintained since Queen Salote’'s death.

“ Her elder son and sucessor, King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, was a frequent visitor and was present at Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee Service in St Paul's Cathedral in June 1977, seated on a large Tudor-style chair originally made for 'Henry VIII' in the TV series 'Elizabeth R'.

The article concluded: “It has been relationship between the Friendly Islands and Britain continues vigourously today but never was better symbolised than by a smiling, wet Queen Salote in 1953.”