Today, nearly 400 years after Barbados was claimed for her ancestor King James I by an English ship, the Queen’s role as head of state of the island comes to an end.
The move by the nation’s politicians to turn it into a republic comes more than 50 years after it became fully independent in 1966.
That year, Her Majesty and Prince Philip were greeted by rapturous crowds as they touched down in Bridgetown, Barbados’s capital, for the start of a five-week tour of the Caribbean.
