To get you in the mood for a royal visit tomorrow, a couple of locals have shared their stories of how brushes with Queen Elizabeth II decades ago got them their 15 minutes of fame.
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Avril Oughton, of Stirling, moved to Australia with her family in 1971.
Despite having lived for 30 years in England, she had never seen the Queen.
In 1972, when the Queen was visiting Canberra, Oughton was working at the ANU. She took an afternoon sickie and went to Holder Primary to collect her son, Chris Williamson then aged 7.
Oughton thought it would be educational for her boy if she took him to the airport in the hope of catching a glimpse of the visiting royal. The few kids that were there had scrambled under the barrier and were near to Her Majesty.
Oughton also had a fine view and went home excited.
The next day at work the departmental secretary said, ''Here is your leave form to fill in, Avril. How are you feeling today?'', then presented her with a copy of a newspaper with a front-page photo of Chris, in his school shirt, under the headline ''Canberra schoolchildren greet their Queen''.
Oughton said, ''It was laughed off although it took me some time to live it down.'' Having mailed off copies of the newspaper to her family in Britain she received back a copy of the same picture that had run in the Daily Mirror, as well as a picture of a billboard outside a local newsagency that read, ''Local boy meets Queen in Canberra.''
Oughton, a staunch royalist, said, ''For a few minutes we were famous.'' The picture has been on show in her lounge ever since.
Oughton will once again be out to catch a glimpse of the Queen in Canberra, as she has on each of her visits.
The Queen's visit to Canberra likewise will mean a lot to Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies staff member Annie MacMillan-Davies, of Barton. She met the Queen about 25 years ago in Norfolk, England, while running a nursery school at the RAF Base Marham. She migrated to Australia in 2000.
MacMillan-Davies said in Britain a lot of military bases received an annual royal visit. Which royal came along was usually a surprise.
''It happened to be Her Majesty. I was shocked, I was delighted.You don't forget something like that.''
MacMillan-Davies spent 15 minutes speaking with the Queen and showing her around. ''I didn't expect her to be so delicate, so lovely, so easy to be with.''
Her meet-and-greet made it into British newspapers.