Remembered: Queen Elizabeth II's visits to Shetland

The Queen paid three separate visits to the islands during the first half of her 70-year reign, most recently in 1981 to officially open the Sullom Voe oil terminal, while her newly anointed successor King Charles III was in the islands as recently as summer 2021.

Most public services and many private businesses closed to coincide with the Queen’s state funeral on Monday, while hundreds gathered outside Lerwick Town Hall eight days earlier for Lord Lieutenant Bobby Hunter to read the proclamation of King Charles III.

His predecessor Sir John Scott was in attendance at the proclamation and had met the Queen on several occasions, including on a visit to Buckingham Palace to receive his knighthood in 2011.

“She always had that personal touch,” he said. “She had that ability to have that suitable word for everyone she met, and I think that was a great gift.”

Lerwick photographer Dennis Coutts, meanwhile, had the privilege of taking pictures at all three of the Queen’s Shetland visits in 1960, 1969 and 1981.

He recalled how her maiden visit in 1960 – the first time a reigning monarch had set foot in Shetland for 700 years, following the visit of Norwegian King Haakon way back in 1263 – had been delayed for a year at the last minute in the summer of 1959 as the Queen was pregnant.

She arrived the following year on board the Royal Yacht Britannia, principally to open a significant extension to Lerwick Harbour, and Dennis recalled that she was shown various pieces of craftwork as part of a “past and present” exhibition at the town’s St Clement’s Hall.

He said: “She looked at a series of photographs that I had on the wall, taken about a fortnight before her visit, and alongside them there were photographs taken from the same vantage point in Lerwick in the 1880s by George Washington Wilson.”

Dennis said the Queen took a particular interest in a pair of pictures of the Malakoff shipyard, and the then Islesburgh chairman Charlie Moar said “Oh, ma’am, the photographer standing right beside us will tell you all about it” – leaving an unprepared Dennis to “flannel my way through speaking about the Malakoff!”

The standout photo he obtained during that visit was at Toft Pier in the north of the Shetland mainland, which serves ferries to Fetlar, Unst and Yell, where a small barge was waiting to take the royal entourage back to the Royal Yacht Britannia, which was sitting at anchor.

Dennis remembered how, as the royal couple began to walk down the quayside, “a peerie boy and a blonde lass appeared out of nowhere and quickly tried to catch up with the two royals, but the boy was held back”.

“Police sergeant Albert Slater put his hand on the boy’s chest to stop this two going. He had thought that this was just two overenthusiastic bairns trying to get a close view of the royals, but fortunately for them constable George Henderson recognised the bairns as Prince Charles and Princess Anne, so they were allowed of course to follow their parents!”

Dennis added: “They all got on the barge, and as it left the pier all four of them turned – Elizabeth, Philip, Charles and Anne – and waved, and I got the best picture of the whole tour. And I was lucky because all the other photographers had gone by that time, so I was the only one down the pier that actually got that photo.”

The Queen’s 1969 visit, meanwhile, commemorated the 500th anniversary of Shetland being transferred to the Scottish crown, with Her Majesty encountering friendly Up Helly Aa Vikings in Lerwick before going on a tour of Shetland schools, visiting smaller rural settlements including Cunningsburgh and Sandwick.

Her third and final visit in May 1981, to open the £1.2 billion Sullom Voe oil terminal, saw Her Majesty receive a warm welcome as she arrived, accompanied by Prince Philip and King Olav of Norway, again off the Royal Yacht Britannia.

The trip was to hit the headlines internationally after an IRA bomb exploded in the terminal’s power station a few hundred yards away from where the Queen was preparing to deliver a speech in front of 700 guests.

Those present were reportedly unaware of the incident at the time, with the music of a brass band drowning out the sound of the explosion.

Dennis remembered learning that the Queen was due to visit the accommodation ship TEV Rangatira to sign the visitors’ book, and made his way aboard to ensure he had a front-row seat.

When she came on board, he recalled, she was handed a gold pen to sign the book – only to discover that it had run out of ink. She briefly “scowled like her hold grumpy granny Queen Mary”, but that soon vanished after she was furnished with a working pen and “signed her name with a flourish and this gorgeous smile”.

Dennis said that on each of her visits Queen Elizabeth was always “very, very popular”. He feels things will truly never be the same again following her passing as “she had been around forever in most folk’s lives”.

Her successor, King Charles III, has made numerous visits to Shetland too in his role as Duke of Rothesay, most recently in summer 2021 to cut the ribbons for the new Lerwick and Scalloway fish markets.

He also officially opened the Shetland Museum and Archives in 2007 and visited the Millennium Show in the summer of 2000, while Shetland was also a stop-off on a two-day Highlands and Islands tour with his then wife Princess Diana in July 1986. The latter trip included a visit to Aith to open the new lifeboat pier.

Following news of Queen Elizabeth’s passing on 8 September, Shetland Islands Council convener Andrea Manson described it as a “profoundly sad day for the nation” and said she would be “remembered for her immense contribution to public life and her popularity, which has been felt in all corners of the Commonwealth, including Shetland”.