A SUNSHINE day for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh's visit to Ludlow had a black lining for 30 unhappy Ludlow schoolchildren.

Instead of being out in the sunshine waving flags at the Royal party, the pupils at Ludlow Junior School spent the afternoon of July 10 writing letters of disappointment to council leaders because they could not be in town like everyone else.

They were the casualties of what appears to be a failure in assigning places at Parkway for school parties to view the Royal visit.

South Shropshire District Council chief executive Graham Biggs has defended the council's management saying three schools made their own choice not to send school parties after being warned of possible over-crowding in Parkway. They had been advised they could position themselves at the entrance to Ludlow Castle in time to see the Queen an hour later at about 3.40pm.

Shropshire County Council assistant clerk of the Lieutenancy, Ian Ridgway, also believed there was "no fault" in district council management since it only had the full picture of what schools wanted to do as late as Tuesday.

But junior school head Ella Bolt was angry that her school with 220 pupils received a district council e-mail warning that it was not known how 570 pupils from three Ludlow schools could be accommodated at Parkway, as late as midday on Wednesday. She said this was too late for many parents to arrange later collecting times on Thursday.

Mrs Bolt said: "The children have written to Mr Biggs about their disppointment. It just seems to have been a mix up between the county and district council and no-one seems to be taking responsibility.

"We tried and tried to get the council to tell us the arrangements. If we had known as late as Monday we could have altered our plans. We told parents they could collect children early and take them themselves, but 30 children could not go and we were sad we could not go as a school party."

St Laurence's School also nearly lost the chance for its 200 children to welcome the Queen. Kevin Bryant said staff conducted a reconnoitre of Parkway before 1pm and managed to find a place "more by luck than judgment".

Ludlow Infants School head Anne Weller said: "I thought it was a disgrace. I read the e-mail as indicating that what we did was at our own risk so I said thank goodness we had changed our minds and asked parents to take their children."