50 years to February 8, 1968 when Queen Elizabeth returned to London with her corgis following her annual Christmas and New Year stay at Sandringham. She wore an interesting onion shaped hat for the trip- quite a different choice from the silk headscarf she sported to make the very same journey today.
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Photos from Getty as indicated
Royal Hats 
I love the UK and the Queen looks good in everything she wears.If I could afford to move to the UK I would.
I know I’m a day late and a dollar short, but I just stumbled on this beautiful picture of HM visiting St. Thomas’ Hospital, later the same month. Alas, it’s also a B/W photo.
February 28, 1968.
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Matthew: I found the pumpkin hat!
Jimbo, LOL, good job! The PA Images website identifies that photo as being from 1964, so four years earlier than the featured blue one. It’s hard to imagine anyone liking that style enough to own it at all, let alone have two of them in different colors, but then, it was the 60s!
Beth said she’d never seen HM with a scarf, and I was going to reply that I’ve seen dozens of photos of her in scarves, but then realized that they were all photos of her with her horses, rambling around the palace grounds or picnicking or things like that — I also don’t think I’ve ever seen her wearing a scarf out in public with a coat that had actually previously been worn at an event.
In recent years, she has made this train journey to/from Sandringham in a silk headscarf and previously worn coat.
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In April 2016, part of her 90th birthday celebrations included lighting beacons across the country. She arrived at the ceremony to light the Windsor beacon in a headscarf instead of a hat. I suspect the event took place later afternoon or early evening, past when it would be considered appropriate to wear a hat.
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Thank you for those photos, HatQueen, I stand corrected! Do you happen to have any further info about that wonderful coat, bottom left, black & white checked or maybe herringbone with the diagonal decoration that goes over both sides? I’d love to see what hat she wore with that when she wasn’t wearing a scarf!
May 7, 2009
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Thanks, Jimbo, I can always count on you to come up with a photo — you must have either a great database or a phenomenal memory! I’ve seen head shots of this hat, but never a full-length photo, so I didn’t mentally put them together, but of course that would have been the hat for this coat!
Matthew, Did you click on the right arrow of the picture and see the rear view? Just super! What a hat!!!
Ah! The good old days when Her Majesty was able to travel to and from Sandringham in comfort aboard the Royal Train, without risking adverse comment!
I’m not sure whether or not the train was still able to run direct to Wolferton Station in 1968 (I can’t remember which year Wolferton was closed).
Richard, according to this very recent article, it was closed in 1969, but there are apparently now calls to reopen that line to reduce congestion on a roadway.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/environment/could-disused-railway-lines-in-norfolk-become-paths-for-walkers-and-cyclists-1-5366428
(Also a nice photo of the station.)
Fur coats and wraps are never seen om the Royal family these days, the few fur hats and trims do get a lot of flack. Fur is terrible,cruel and unnecessary.
Seeing the hat in black-and-white leaves me unmoved, but seeing it in colour is a whole other story. Now I really like it! Thanks for this pic Jimbo!
I couldn’t focus on the onion hat for looking at her corgis! The orange ensemble is beautiful – I don’t think I’ve ever seen her with a scarf!
Thank goodness that hat is blue and not orange! Because shape-wise, it looks a lot more like a pumpkin to me than an onion!
You’re right- it is more of a pumpkin than an onion!
Onion shaped and hat aren’t two things you put together very often are they. Well, it’s of its time I suppose!
Ooh! I really like this blue onion hat! I actually wish we’d see it again, though I know that’s not going to happen. It’s a rare one from way back that I really like, not just like-for-the-time. And I love the headscarf, though I wish we could have seen the dogs!
Today’s orange coat is HM’s 2013 Christmas coat.
The picture below is of HM LEAVING London to go on her Christmas break, December, 1965. Same hat, different coat.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/18/royal2_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq0n4RM-0Q5Zy6haxTpgB8HKjvT_nGBBrLxEbe513jPxo.jpg?imwidth=480
Thank you, Jimbo. It’s a fun picture you found from The Daily Telegraph archives
You wouldn’t be THE Liz that we all admire on this blog, would you?
It appears that Her Majesty had several fur coats to pick from at this time. I like the one in you picture.