A four-day celebration is under way to mark Queen Elizabeth's platinum jubilee, beginning overnight with a spectucular display of pageantry in London.
New Zealand played a part last night, on the steps to the Tangi Te Keo Mt Victoria lookout when mana whenua ignited a torch in a short ceremony.
A choir then sung A Song for the Commonwealth, a piece specially commissioned with the chorus in te reo.
Following her majesty closely throughout her 70-year reign has been two very keen royalists, New Plymouth's Barbara Larsen and Angela Thompson, from the Waikato town of Te Aroha.
Barbara was four when she began her 81 years of collecting royal books and magazines.
Angela's home is filled with over 8000 items of royal memorabilia.
They spoke to Susie Ferguson.
