PRINCESS Margaret touched the hearts of hundreds of East Lancashire people during her many visits to the area.

The Queen's sister came to the region on several occasions, most notably for the re-hallowing of Blackburn Cathedral in October 1965, when thousands of people lined the streets of the town to catch a glimpse of the visiting royal.

It was a visit that almost never happened after dense fog in London threatened to keep the Princess in the capital -- despite the fact that Blackburn was drenched in October sun!

Despite the delay the Princess insisted that the cathedral service should start without her as she didn't want to upset all the arrangements that had been made.

It was a typical gesture from a royal who had the common touch and ability to charm the masses of waiting East Lancashire folk, but who never let her royalty let her get detached.

She also came to East Lancashire to open a new child care centre for the NSPCC in Blackburn 11 years ago in 1991 when she delighted young and old alike.

The Princess was just one of a number of the royals who have visited the county over the last 50 years, including Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and Diana, the Princess of Wales, who delighted crowds during a visit in 1993.

Princess Margaret's 1991 visit to Blackburn marked what was perhaps one of the last glamourous royal visits to the county coming as it did just before the separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1992 and Blackburn MP Jack Straw's controversial remarks on the Royal Family's role in 1993.

Mr Straw called for a radical shake-up of the monarchy in Britain and urged for a slimmed down version like the royal family in Scandinavia.

When Prince Charles visited Blackburn in 1993 shortly after Mr Straw made his remarks, the number of visitors who turned out to see him was nothing like the crowds who flocked to see Princess Margaret in 1991 or the hundreds who gathered at Blackburn Cathedral for her visit 25 years before that.

One royal, however, who continued to thrill the crowds was Diana, Princess of Wales, who enchanted workers at the Lancashire Leyland DAF plant in 1993 as well as staff at Royal Preston Hospital.

Another royal favourite was the Princess Royal Princess Anne who brought a ray of sunshine to drizzly East Lancashire in 1994 when she wowed the crowds on a whistle-stop tour of Hyndburn.

But few royal visits can have matched the splendour and mystique of Princess Margaret's cathedral visit all those years ago when the royal family still had an air of glamour and mystery.