AN ardent royalist has barred three middle-aged women from her jubilee-themed tea room after they refused to stand for the National Anthem.

Monarchist Anita Atkinson opened Royal Teas in Stanhope, County Durham, last month with friend Christine Dodd.

Every day at 3pm, Mrs Atkinson, who owns the country’s largest collection of royal memorabilia, asks her customers to stand while she encourages a young customer to tap a helium balloon, which plays the tune of the National Anthem.

However, on Saturday, three women refused and so Mrs Atkinson asked them to leave.

“It just meant as a bit of fun and British eccentricity,” she said. “We had a room full of people, including four teenagers, and I announced ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for Her Majesty the Queen’.

“Everyone stood up apart from these three ladies.

“They were vociferous in their refusal to stand up, so I asked ‘Are you not going to stand up?’ “One said ‘I’m not standing’, so I said ‘will you just please leave then’. I was nice about it.

“One of them told me the coffee was rubbish and they talked deliberately through the National Anthem. They were grumbling all the way out.

“The teenagers in the tearooms were absolutely shocked and one of them said ‘that was a complete lack of respect by those ladies’.

“If the women had been leather-clad bikers or youths, you would expect to call the police."

Mrs Atkinson, 55, admitted the gimmick does make some people self-conscious – “and I understand that, but it is only meant to be a bit of quirky fun”.

She added: “If you don’t want to stand for the National Anthem, don’t spoil the fun and don’t come into a tearoom dedicated to the British monarchy.’’ Mrs Atkinson held the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of royal memorabilia until December 2010, when a woman in Australia took her crown.

She runs the tearoom with Ms Dodd as a community asset to draw tourists to Weardale and to thank the Queen.

She said: “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I have had the last laugh.

“I can’t believe it, but the story has gone worldwide.”

Visitors from Germany, Spain and Australia have already visited and the tearooms will remain open until the end of August from 10am to 4.30pm, Wednesday to Sunday.

• Do you know the women involved? Call Dani Webb on 01388-602232