In the French-Wright family, it's known as ''the royal hanky''.
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A small square of linen only ever brought out to be waved during royal visits.
It's believed to have made its first appearance at a visit by the then Duke and Duchess of York to New Zealand in 1927, waved by family matriarch Janet French-Wright, a staunch royalist who also happened to be New Zealand's first female journalist.
Her grand-daughter and namesake, Janet French-Wright, who works at the Australian National University in Canberra, remembers waving the hanky as a child when the Queen drove past their home in Christchurch for the 1974 Commonwealth Games.
And last night, Josie Geal, great-grand-daughter of the original Janet French-Wright, continued the family tradition 84 years later by waving the hanky at the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh as they drove towards the gates of Government House. ''She drove right past. It was really good to see someone from the royal family. She's so regal,'' Josie, 12, said.
''I waved the hanky. I'm not sure if she saw me.''
Her mother, the second Janet French-Wright, said the hanky had been ''waved quite a few times'', for every royal visit that came her grandmother's way.
''She was quite an old character but the royal family was everything to her,'' she said.
With the death of the original Janet French-Wright in 1981, the royal hanky made its way over the Tasman Sea to become a treasured keepsake in her descendants' Carwoola home.