A couple have spoken of their mixed emotions about opening a hand-signed card from Queen Elizabeth II on the day she died.
Tricia and Ray Pont from Godalming, Surrey, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on Thursday.
The couple learned of the Queen's illness while they were out on a celebratory lunch.
The pensioners said it was "a day of mixed emotions" that they would "never forget".
All couples who reach 60 years of marriage receive a card of congratulations from the monarch.
Mrs Pont said: "I was so excited to open the card. I thought it would be such a lovely moment for our family.
"It makes the card even more precious and poignant as we were one of the last people to get correspondence from her."
Mr Pont said: "We both came home from our lunch and looked at the card and felt quite tearful.
"We were absolutely devastated and so upset."
Mrs Pont described how the card had a photograph of the Queen on the front taken on the Buckingham Palace balcony at her Diamond Jubilee in June.
She said: "It just means so much. It had a lovely message inside and was hand-signed."
Mrs Pont, now 80, described herself as a being a "total royalist" since she was a child.
She described how her parents took her to London in 1947 on the night before the Queen's wedding.
She said: "We stood on the railings at Buckingham Palace when they came out on the balcony. It was wonderful."
Mrs Pont said she later went to a garden party at Buckingham Palace on behalf of the Girl Guides Association in the presence of the Queen, which she described as "a great honour".
She said: "The Queen has been an intrinsic part of my whole life.
"I feel very privileged to have had contact with Her Majesty."
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