Great pains are often taken to protect royal visitors from the realities of the workplaces to which they are invited. It was no exception when a youthful Prince Charles was taken on a tour of selected parts of Greenside Woolcombing Company in Thornton Road during a visit to Bradford in June, 1981 - the month before his marriage to Lady Diana Spencer.

Geoff Stead was reminded of this highlight of his 40-year career as a clerk there by a chance meeting with a former colleague in a Skipton fish-and-chip shop, and was prompted to write to Past Times about it.

"Preparations at the factory began several weeks in advance," he recalls. "Graffiti-covered walls were painted over, Charlie the cleaner got blistered hands scraping years of rubber-tyre deposit from the fork-lift trucks off the concrete floors where the Prince's feet would pass, and finally a wall' of wool bales was constructed to screen off unsightly areas of the cellar affected by persistent and incurable oil leaks from the machinery on the floor above.

"The great day arrived. Most of the workforce were shut up in the canteen for the duration of the visit as only a few carefully-selected personnel were to be given the opportunity of meeting the Prince. Almost all the machinery was switched off so as not to irritate the royal ears.

"I was stationed behind one of the aforementioned walls of bales with a plain-clothes policeman, ostensibly to watch out for any intruder who may have infiltrated the tight security but really, I imagine, to keep me out of the way, dressed as I was in one of Mum's hand-knitted cardigans.

"As the Prince passed out of the crane doorway into his waiting Rolls-Royce, my companion said Quick, look through that chink between these bales and you'll catch glimpse of the Prince'. So I did.

"Some weeks afterwards a photograph album containing snaps of the royal visit were circulated throughout the factory and employees were invited to order copies of those taken in their particular department. Curiously enough, only those honoured to have greeted HRH seemed to avail themselves of the opportunity to order the snaps. I didn't."