Like it was yesterday: Rochester 93-year-old Marj Sharp was front and centre when Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip briefly visited the town in 1954. The very next day her third child, Judith, was born. Apart from being just two years younger than the queen, Marj has a lot in common — a mother (of seven), a grandmother and great-grandmother.
A smile immediately comes to the face of soon-to-turn-94 Marj Sharp when quizzed about the day she had a “brush with royalty’’.
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Marj, who has lived in Rochester for 90 years, was given a front row seat to Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Rochester — a 15-minute stopover at the railway station — on Friday, March 5, 1954.
She was nine months pregnant with her third child, Judith, and due to her sister-in-law being a member of the Rochester committee organising the salute to Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip) she was allowed to sit with the aged and infirm.
Welcome to Rochester: Judith Westcott, the seven-year-old daughter of then Shire of Rochester secretary Ron Westcott, presents a bouquet of flowers to Queen Elizabeth on her arrival to Rochester.
“My sister-in-law Nancy was on the organising committee, so she organised me a chair with the elderly, in the front row,” Marj said.
“She (Queen Elizabeth) walked past and spoke to everybody. It was obvious I was neither aged or infirm.”
Judith was born the very next day (March 6) and would probably have been named Elizabeth, like many other daughters of the era, if not for one important factor.
“Everyone told me to call her Elizabeth, but I already had an Elizabeth (her second-born child, who was two at the time).
“She was not named after the Queen, I just liked the name,” Marj said.
Whistle-stop tour: Queen Elizabeth’s March tour of regional Victoria in 1954 included a brief stop at Rochester. She and Prince Philip (then Duke of Edinburgh) visited Australia from February 24 to March 9, visiting all capital cities apart from Darwin and more than 70 country towns.
Speaking to Marj about the queen, just hours after the announcement that the 96-year-old monarch had died, showed just how profound the impact was on those people who met her almost seven decades ago.
Queen Elizabeth was born just two years before Marj and had ascended to the thrown only two years before her visit to Rochester.
In total she reigned for 70 years and 214 days, the second-longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country.
Marj had seven children in total, five daughters and two sons, and followed the Queen’s pregnancies closely through the years — Prince Charles (born in 1948), Princess Ann (1950), Prince Andrew (1960) and Prince Edward (1964).
Queen Elizabeth was accompanied to Rochester by her husband of — to that point — seven years (Prince Philip). He died in April last year after 73 years of marriage to the queen.
Motherhood is something the Rochester mother and the queen had in common. The Queen had eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Marj’s children range in age from Geoff, the eldest at 72, Elizabeth, who turned 70 in March, Judith, 68, Janet, 66, Kerrie, 64, Carolyn, 60, and Andrew, 56.
She has 10 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, the youngest member of the four generations being just two months old.
Marj said the queen was someone that she admired greatly, but she suggested the death of Prince Phillip had had a significant impact on her health.
“I thought she was amazing,” Marj said.
“I think she went downhill after Prince Philip died. I think she has grieved and that has had an impact.
“I heard her say recently that grief was the result of love, when she was speaking about her her husband (Prince Philip).
“I think she was an amazing woman and a good role model. She was working right up until the day she died.”
Only 24 hours before she died the queen had sworn in her 15th prime minister, Mary Truss — who fittingly has the middle name Elizabeth.
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