TODAY is a red-letter day for Bournemouth University with the visit of the Duke of Kent to open the new £7.8 million library and learning centre.

And the occasion will trigger memories of the last royal visit to the campus when the Queen graced Poole and Bournemouth on March 24 1979.

It was a day that the flag-waving crowds will never forget. After a royal tour that took in Poole Arts Centre and Poole Pottery on the Quay, the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh moved on to what was then the Dorset Institute of Higher Education.

There the couple sampled "a mouth-watering masterpiece" as the Echo of the day put it, cooked and served by catering students.

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," the Echo said. "And eat the Queen did."

HND catering student Julia Fetherstone had the honour of serving Her Maj-esty and other selected gue-sts at the luncheon in the Thomas Hardy restaurant.

"The Queen was quiet and relaxed," she reported afterwards. "She smiled a lot and was very sweet to everyone. I suppose more than anything we were impressed to see that she ate everything we served. It's a compliment to the cooking, I think."

So what tickled the royal taste buds of the time? Avocado and prawns were followed by saddle of Dorset lamb, pot-roseted with herbs and aromats. Then there were comice pears poached in vanilla-flavoured syrup, glazed and presented in the form of a crown.

The Queen and Prince Philip were also impressed by a huge crown of ice, weighing two hundredweight and sculpted by Geoffrey Depper, a senior lecturer.

Some students and staff then had the chance to meet the monarch who went on to talk to HND students in the Institute's experimental kitchen. The Duke showing a particular interest in blast-freezing food, questioning students Catherine Hall, Deborah Walsh and Christine Gilbey.

Then the Queen and Duke left the Institute to be greeted by more flag-waving crowds on their way to visiting Bournemouth Cen-tral Police Station where they also enjoyed a walkabout at the Lansdowne.