IT’S a cold day in February 1948 and the people of Wimborne are gathering in the streets. Princess Elizabeth is about to arrive in their town but she won’t stop, she’s on her way to somewhere else, a place she and her family will visit more than any other destination in this county over the coming 60 years.

Elizabeth is on her way to Lulworth to inspect the 16th/15th Lancers at Park Camp. “If this mechanised age has brought with it the loss of your horses and your lances, with which your predecessors won such fame, it has given you the chance, first in tanks and now as an armoured car regiment, of taking a foremost place in the cavalry of modern war,” she tells them in that restrained, unmistakeable accent which has since given way to the one we all recognise now.

Elizabeth takes tea in the NAAFI canteen, reviving memories of all the times she had done so just a few years before when she secretly signed up to the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Army and, as Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor, trained as a driver. Certainly it would have reminded her of the secret war-time visit she made to Bovington with her father, King George VI.

Her journey back from the 1948 visit took her through Lytchett Minster and Holme Bridge, where children giggled as a gust of wind blew away her hat, gallantly caught by Captain L G H Pottle of Aldershot. They had a chance, too, to witness the Princess’s maternal side.

“Please may I have my fingers back,” she pleaded with NCO’s daughter baby Margaret Hannay, who clung determinedly to the royal hand.

In 1955 it was the turn of Prince Philip to visit the area as Colonel-in-Chief of the Leicestershire Yeomanry. In the style for which he was to become increasingly famous, he landed his Royal Naval chopper at Lulworth Camp and while two airman whipped out a set of steps for him, he jumped out the other side, dressed in short-sleeves to watch a mock battle involving Charioteer tank crews before going on to Bovington to watch troop training.

In the years that followed, the royal connection to this part of the world got even stronger. Even before Princes William and Harry embarked on their armoured vehicle courses, Bovington hosted the training of yet another senior royal – King Hussein of Jordan. He learned tank warfare at Bovington as did his son, King Abdullah II.

Like Abdullah, who made a private visit a few years back, King Hussein enjoyed his nostalgic returns to Bovington – although one trip down tank memory lane didn’t go quite as planned.

During his 1966 visit King Hussein enthusiastically took the wheel of a five-ton carrier. A newspaper report of the time noted: ‘As the vehicle lurched over a deeply rutted field, Col Marcus Fox was thrown out of his seat beside the King, broke a tooth and arose clutching a bloody lip.’ The unfortunate Colonel later received a gold wristwatch and a note of apology from the King, for what was quaintly described as ‘the mishap’.

During the 1990s and into the new century, the Queen and Prince Phillip visited again and again; in 1995 to watch Elizabeth’s tank regiments put their machines through their paces and in 1997 to witness the Royal Tank Regiment give yet another display.

In 2006 it was the younger generation who made the visits – and the headlines. For four months Prince Harry was instructed in the command of nine-ton Scimitar armoured fighting vehicles. Colonel Jamie Martin explained what his role would be. “We favour the skills of the poacher,” he said. “We are, if you like, the eyes and ears of the commanders. We are not, and don’t pretend to be, infantry.”

Like his comrades, Harry had quarters in the officers’ mess with a standard room to himself – bed, wardrobe, basin and access to communal facilities including shower cubicles, a dining room and a recreation room and it was the same for Prince William, who arrived in 2007.

Pictures of the Prince in training, however, were completely overshadowed by those of him enjoying a night out at Bournemouth’s Elements nightclub after briefly splitting from Kate Middleton, although the pair are understood to have made up and become a couple again during his time at the camp.

Two years later the Queen was back, opening the new exhibition hall at the tank museum and swapping jokes and stories with veterans.

Normandy veteran Joe Elkins, who, having trained at Bovington, destroyed three Nazi Tiger tanks in 12 minutes in August 1944, regaled the Queen with his story. “She was amazed,” he said.

Museum director Richard Smith said Prince Phillip in particular showed a great interest in the work of the museum: “He thought it was terrific, he loved it and he was going off in all different directions looking at the stuff.”

Curator David Willey has fond memories of this day, and a few theories as to why the Royals just keep coming back.

“When the Queen came to the opening we’d gone through our archives and taken out some photographs of her father when he was inspecting tanks and she was on a visit with him during the war,” he said.

“We put some around the office and it was commented on by the equerries that she was particularly touched by that. Everyone knows she’s very respectful of her father so I think her interest in Bovington and the work they and we do here is a continuation of that. Because she idolised her father I think she was very conscious of being in uniform and I think she’s very much connected with the military because of that.”

Photos frequently show her at her most animated with veterans – her generation. “Certainly they went through the war years together, there’s a communality there and there’s a connection with service,” says David.

He especially remembers one moment from that visit. “One of the chaps we’ve got here drove the Rolls Royce armoured car down the Mall, and when she came round the museum the first thing she said when they were introduced was; ‘We’ve met before!’ He was delighted and who wouldn’t be?”

Who indeed. And only a fool would bet on the royals not returning to their beloved Bovington and Lulworth before very long.