This week is not the first time the Queen has been to York Minster to hand out Maundy money. She came 30 years ago, too: on March 30, 1972.

“City Crowds Welcome The Queen” was the headline in the Evening Press that day.

It was a day of heavy drizzle – so heavy the 30-strong band of the 1st Bn the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, which had come to York from Catterick to welcome the Queen, moved undercover inside York Station.

The Queen arrived at the station two minutes early, inspected the troops, then her cavalcade set off for the Minster.

Large crowds had gathered in Duncomb Place. The rain had stopped: but the Queen shivered as she arrived at the Minster, and later told people she was feeling the cold after a recent Far Eastern tour.

The pageantry inside the cathedral was colourful, with most of the women in the congregation wearing Easter straw hats sporting scarlet roses – a colour repeated in the medieval uniforms of the Yeoman of the Guard, the choir surplices and the robes of the Aldermen and the Archbishop of York, Dr Donald Coggan.

Forty-six men and the same number of women – the number reflecting the Queen’s age at the time – received the money in coloured purses.

Recipients later told the Evening Press they were determined not to sell their coins, while one 72-year-old man said he was going off to have a pint, and toast the Queen before he went home.

The relatives of several of those who received Maundy money from the Queen that day contacted the Press recently to relive their memories of the day.

Haxby man Eddie Benson said his late father, John, was among those invited to the ceremony. The Queen presented him with a red purse and two white purses containing 20 coins worth a total of 46 pence – along with four £1 notes.

“He was absolutely overcome by it,” he said. “He never expected it and just loved every minute of it.”

He thought his father had been nominated for the honour because of his service to the church and the community by the then vicar of Haxby, Canon Donald Hewitt.

Mr Benson, 77, who himself met the Queen several years ago, when he received the MBE, revealed that he had already had a Maundy connection long before the 1972 service. “My wife and I moved into our bungalow in Haxby on Maundy Thursday in 1958, and so called it Maundy,” he said.

Debbie Johnson, nee Burbridge, recalled how her father Paul Burbridge, then Precentor of the Minster, was responsible for the arrangements for the entire service and also received Maundy Money.

She said: “He subsequently went on to be Dean of Norwich, and is now retired and living next door to us in south-west Scotland. He will be celebrating his 80th birthday this year.”

Meanwhile Mike Bradshaw, of Bishopthorpe, said his mother, Betty Bradshaw, who worked as a cleaner at the Minster and loved the job, was also a recipient.

“Sadly, my mother died a couple of years ago and I now keep the coins which were given to her together with the official invitation ticket to the Minster ceremony from Alan Richardson, the then Dean,” he said. “My wife and I still love going into the Minster and I often think of the happy times my mother spent there.”

Rosemary De Little said her son, Simon, received a set of Maundy money when he was a chorister at the Minster choir 40 years ago.

“My husband and I were in the Minster for the Maundy service and the Queen walked past us,” she said.

“Simon now lives near Howden, but he still has his set of Maundy money and treasures them.”