Queen Gets Warm Welcome In Isles Of Scilly

The Queen has been welcomed with sunshine and smiles as she made her first visit to the Isles of Scilly in 44 years.

She arrived with the Duke of Edinburgh by helicopter at the tiny airport on St Mary's, the largest and most populated of the islands in the archipelago.

Almost the entire 2,000-strong population lined the streets of Hugh Town to greet the royal couple.

It was the first time she had visited the Isles, off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula, since 1967.

The monarch and Prince Philip, then accompanied by princes Charles and Andrew and Princess Anne, arrived on the Royal Yacht Britannia.

The island's council chairman Mike Hicks remembers the Queen's last visit clearly.

His boat, the Sea King, was used by visiting journalists and photographers to follow the royal party's barge as they toured the main islands.

"The weather today is as good as it was then," he said.

The Queen's trip saw her visit the new £15m Five Island School, where she opened a sports hall named in her honour.

She then moved on to Holgate's Green in Hugh Town, where she was treated to dancing by schoolchildren and taken on a tour of a new fisheries patrol vessel.

Earlier the Queen and Prince Philip had visited Penzance, arriving in the town on the royal train where a crowd of more than 1,000 people were waiting on the platform.