It was the day Her Majesty turned the tables - and came to see what the journalists were doing as she toured the Daily Mirror offices in person.
In 1976 the Queen was shown around our newsroom, then in Holborn, central London, along with Prince Philip.
Staff were told about the visit but instructed to work as normal, as the monarch, then 50, wanted to find out how the paper worked.
Royal photographer Kent Gavin, who took photos of the visit, remembers how the Queen appeared most interested in the sports department.
And he says she was fascinated by the Mirror’s photo archive, where she spent a long time looking up pictures of herself and her family.
Kent, well known to the royal family after accompanying the Queen on foreign tours, recalls: “I remember Prince Philip talking to me because I had a really garish tie on he said, and he asked me where I got it and joked, ‘Mr Gavin, did you wear that tie for a bet?”.
“That broke down all the protocol. He was pictured laughing with me about my tie.
“The Queen went into the picture library and was absolutely fascinated. She spent so much time there looking for pictures of herself and the royal family.
“This was a long time before digitalisation and she seemed really interested in how the pictures were sectioned and how long it took to look them up.
“She also seemed amazed at how big the newsroom was. They went right the way through all the departments, then ended up in the office of the Mirror’s editor Mike Molloy.”
As the Mirror’s royal photographer, Kent followed the Queen around the world over 30 years and was often chosen by her to register moments that would go down in history.
He remembers: “There are so many moments.
"Perhaps the funniest was the time the Queen and Diana approved me to shoot pictures of Prince William’s christening in the palace.
“We were told not to engage in conversation with any members of the family, but at the end of the shoot I noticed that we hadn’t got a photo of the Queen Mother holding William, the oldest member of the family with the youngest.
“I knew we had to get it, so I decided to go over to the Queen and said, ‘Excuse me ma’am, we really need to take this picture’ and she said, ‘Good gracious me’, and called the Queen Mother back.
“She put her gin and tonic down and did the photo.
“At the end, Diana came over and said, ‘Well done, Kent’, because she knew you didn’t normally get a conversation with the Queen.”
He believes that the royal family’s good relationship with the media is because of the way the Queen adapted to changing times.
He says: “When I first got involved as a royal photographer, the royal family was stuck in the Victorian era when it came to the media.
“But after Diana, and with the young ones coming through, this wonderful lady adapted, she moved it to a different era and coped with it very well.
“She was a wonderful lady, she went everywhere, did everything, met everyone. She’s going to be a hard act to follow.”
