The Queen made a number of visits to Merseyside during her reign.
Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday (September 8) at the age of 96, ascended to the throne in 1952, at the age of 25. She was the United Kingdom's head of state for 70 years.
From attending the Grand National at Aintree, to launching a new facility at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and opening the Mersey Gateway Bridge in Runcorn with Meghan Markle, the Queen's numerous visits to the region will be well-remembered.
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One of those visits took place as part of her 2002 Golden Jubilee celebrations and saw her open the new terminal building at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Alongside Yoko Ono, the Queen cut the ribbon on the revamped building and marked Liverpool's new international airport officially open.
As part of the airport's recent 20th anniversary celebrations, the airport's Head of PR and Communications Robin Tudor spoke to the ECHO about the Queen's visit. In 2001, Yoko Ono made the announcement the former Speke Airport would be renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport and the former Beatle's wife came back a year later with Cherie Blair, and later the Queen, to mark the next stages in the airport's development.
Robin said: "To use John Lennon’s name, permission had to be sought from Yoko Ono. The other coup in all of this was that, having approached Yoko Ono, she was completely behind it, loved the idea and she wanted to get involved, which again just made it even better for us. To have her endorsement behind it would be fantastic in terms of getting the name out there.
"It was actually 2001 - almost a year before the terminal building was officially opened - that Yoko Ono came to the airport and helped make the announcement. It was all under wraps and nobody knew anything about it - the big press conference was held in the airport and in walked Yoko Ono who pulled back the curtain to reveal the new name of the airport.
"The terminal was well under construction at that time, so we put in the John Lennon statue in spring 2002. Yoko came back to unveil the statue with Cherie Blair. The Blairs were in the city region.
"We had a big ceremony to unveil the statue and the culmination of that was the Queen coming to open the new terminal building on July 25, 2002 as part of her jubilee celebrations. She was going around the country for various things and she came to Merseyside - her first port of call on that day was here at the airport to officially open the new terminal.
"For us, it was the completion of that rebrand and to be called Liverpool John Lennon Airport - the statue and the new name were in place. It had been operational since earlier that year but the official opening was marked by the visit of the Queen and Yoko Ono. It was a great day - it did really put the seal on the airport changing and people’s perceptions of it."
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