Ryedale residents have shared their memories of the Queen following her death last Thursday.

The Queen is first understood to have visited the area in 1961.

Accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen was greeted at Hovingham by Sir William and Lady Worsley before the wedding of the Duke of Kent and Katherine Worsley in York.

On July 2, 1975, The Queen and Prince Philip visited Pickering Castle and were warmly welcomed at the top of Castlegate.

They went on to meet the tenants of the Duchy of Lancaster inside the Castle, before moving to Park Gates where they planted two oak trees.

Fiona Allan, shared memories of her late father John Ridley who worked for the railway all his life from 1960 and in 1987 he became Special Services Manager at British Rail in 1987 until he retired in 1994.

Fiona said: “His job involved planning the operations of the royal train when a member of the royal family wished to travel by train. He was extremely proud to carry out this role and we have have lots of happy memories meeting members of the royal family at various different railway stations as they arrived for their engagements in the area. He was very proud when he was presented to the Queen at Wakefield station.

“He had lots of personal letters from the royal household thanking him for his meticulous hard work with the arrangements.

“When my dad passed away we received a letter from the Queen’s lady in waiting saying how sorry she was to hear the news of him passing which was wonderful that time had been taken to be in touch with us.”

Helen Hodgson shared memories of her father’s meeting with the Queen which was memorable in a number of ways.

Helen said Anthony Clark , from Kirkbymoorside had receiving his MBE from the Queen in 2001.

“This was 28th February, 2001, even more memorable as it was the Great Heck rail disaster.

“We were booked on that train until the week before when we decided we’d never make it across London in time so we went down the night before, thank goodness!

“Dad got an MBE for services to the community. He’s still so proud as are we. He can hardly write now due to Parkinsons but even if his name is scratchy on his signature he always writes the MBE clearly.”