The big news in November, was, inevitably, my
visit to Buckingham Palace. As a guest. Wow.
Even now, it seems like a dream. I can’t say ‘a
dream come true’ because I had never in my entire life dreamed of going inside
Buckingham Palace, let alone as an invited guest.
I am more than a little embarrassed about it
all because, initially, I didn’t take it seriously.
The invitation from Never Such Innocence to its Centenary Finale at Buckingham Palace, arrived by email, personally
addressing me by name and telling me how important it was that I should attend.
I ignored it. Actually, that is not entirely
true. The invitation first popped in to my inbox as a ‘save the date’ and I did
indeed look up the date, some months in advance. When I saw that it fell on a
weekday when I would be at work, I dismissed it: I assumed I would not be able
to attend. Indeed, I did not realise the personal nature of the invitation.
I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, BUCKINGHAM PALACE! It's not every day or indeed any day that you get an invite like that.
Then the actual invitation arrived, asking me
to RSVP so that I could receive my entry ticket. I ignored it again. Even
though it was addressed to me personally, I just assumed that it was one of the
clever emails which are sent to thousands, with the name of the recipient
cunningly inserted for each one.
Then the events organiser phoned the school where
I teach, asking me to phone him. I forgot. It was only when I received a ‘last
chance’ email that I realised that I should, perhaps, let my headteacher know
about the invitation: perhaps he would go to the tea party?
Well, he couldn’t. He wanted to, of course,
but the invitation was to me personally. Why?
Not because I am anyone important, or special
in any way. I was personally invited just
for doing my job.
As a Year 6 class teacher, I had planned
lessons and sent off the children’s entries for an international art and poetry
competition organised by a charity set up to promote understanding of the First
World War, for the four centenary years. The first year, one of our children
achieved a prize as a runner up and again, a couple of years later, so did
another. To celebrate and ‘wind up’ the project, the organising charity had
arranged to host a tea party at Buckingham Palace, inviting the prize winners
and those teachers who had supported the initiative.
To say I was excited is an understatement. I
was BEYOND excited. I have never – and am still not – been impressed by
celebrities. Rather, my childhood heroes were people such as Albert Schweitzer,
who dedicated his life to serving others in the Congo, or others who sacrificed
their own ambitions to help those in need or those who, like Connie Ten Boom,
endured horrendous suffering and preached forgiveness. But, somehow, this was
different. This was an invitation to somewhere which cannot be bought or
achieved through effort and striving. The invitation was a purely gracious,
unearned gift.
I really didn’t think it applied to me. As my
brother asked, somewhat incredulously, when I recounted how I had only accepted
the invitation at the very last minute when it was clear that I really WAS
invited, “Didn’t you think you deserved to go?”
Well, no, I didn’t. I really didn’t think I did deserve such an honour.
I was right. I didn’t really deserve it, but,
in the end, I did accept with delight. Yes, I suppose you could say I ‘earned’
the invitation because I taught the lessons, helped the children with their
work and sent in the competition entries. Yet my hard work could have gone
unrewarded – indeed, there were many teachers who were not invited. I had no
control over whether or not I could enter the palace.
Nevertheless, once my head graciously gave me
permission (and authorised the purchase of my air ticket!), it was all I could
think of.
I felt like a child again, waiting for The Day
to arrive. As it was, I barely slept the night before, getting up eventually at
5 to catch the red-eye from Guernsey. I managed – country hick that I am – to
find my way up to London, with the help of delightful rail officials.
 |
| About to enter through the outer gates.... |
So, there I was, approaching the main gate,
showing my entry card and passport to the policemen on duty before joining the
crocodile of people walking across the gravel to the ‘front door’ and in to the
quadrangle. We filed our way across the quadrangle and through the Grand Entrance
to the west-facing garden façade
at the rear of the palace, greeted with a fanfare from a brass quintet
(from the Coldstream Guards, according to the programme) before we deposited
our coats to smiling girls, leaving phones and cameras with them: No
Photography Allowed.
A visit to the Ladies’ Cloakroom downstairs –
quiet, thickly piled carpet – was a surprise. The ‘Water Closet’ seemed
Victorian, being like a commode with a dark wooden seat and a separate flushing
system, whereby one pulled up a handle in a recessed bowl next to the toilet
seat. Fascinating. One of many ‘wish I had a camera’ moments.
We then made our way along a wide, carpeted
corridor. The opening of the Olympic Games in London showed Her Majesty walking
along just such a corridor with James Bond.... Then up the Grand Staircase and
along the Picture Gallery, which
is top-lit and 55 yards long. The Gallery is hung with numerous
works of Queen Victoria and her family,
including some by Rembrandt, van
Dyck, Rubens and Vermeer
...huge paintings which I had only seen in books. Several of them were ones we
had used in our recent Year 6 project on Queen Victoria – how strange to see
them, hugely larger than life, in reality.
The RAF Salon Orchestra entertained us with
music for string instruments as we waited to be registered, before we entered
the Ballroom.
It was HUGE. Six massive crystal chandeliers
hung from the ceiling, which was ornately carved and painted in white and gold,
with carvings on the arches above the two thrones at the far end of the room, a
minstrels gallery and massive organ at the back.
The Ballroom is the largest and most important
room in the palace, built in 1856. 120 feet long, nearly 60 feet wide and 44
feet high. State banquet and investitures are held here: Prince William had,
indeed, performed some in this very room that same morning, standing on the
same spot as the children did when they performed their poems and songs. Velvet
upholstered chairs were set out in the middle of the room, but I was fortunate
enough to be seated on the upper tier of a (velvet upholstered) bench,
affording me a wonderful view of the proceedings.
(And let me say now that any further
description is all thanks to Wikipedia. I barely
took in all the magnificence in detail, so bemused was I by the grandeur of the
palace.)
The proceedings
began with a drum display by the Royal Marines Drums Corps: indeed, these five
drummers performed a real ‘drum roll’ before every child’s performance.
The
presentations were a lovely mixture of messages from adults and a celebration
of the children’s work which was, indeed, the main focus of the afternoon. Lady
Lucy French, founder of Never Such Innocence, spoke charmingly, extending many
thank yous to all those who had helped in the last four years: including the
teachers - 40 of us had been invited. Sir Tim Laurence, the President of NSI, welcomed us. Statements
from various Secretaries of State were read out, including a statement from the
Prime Minister, Theresa May. There were messages from high-ranking officers in
the Forces. And the many songs and poems performed by the children – including one
from a five year old, speaking the poem she had composed when she was still
only three – were, at times, incredibly moving.
Afterwards, we
were directed to the Blue Drawing Room, the Music Room and the Green Room for
afternoon tea. Filled with priceless Chinese vases, hung with huge portraits, these
very formal rooms are astoundingly opulent: it was no surprise to learn that
they are used only for ceremonial and official entertaining.
The people I
met were, mainly, the children and their parents: they were delightful. Their art and
poetry has been published in a beautiful book:
so much talent.11,000 competition entries over the four years.
(I encountered
a few important adults: the commander of the Wellington Barracks at the Horse
Guards Parade, and a Jesuit
priest, Father Anthony Nye who, to my great delight, knew another Jesuit, Fr Bernard Basset, who had
been a great encouragement
to me as a questioning teenager, mainly through his books which I still own. (Fr Bernard was
priest on the Isles of Scilly when I was growing up in the 70s: I knew him from my summer visits, enjoying visiting his tiny church on St Mary's. In those early
ecumenical times, he had a garden bench with two labels on: ‘Protestant’ at one
end and ‘Catholic’ at the other. Fr
Bernard insisted on sitting in the middle...)
It was
wonderful that the emphasis of the day was, quite rightly, on the children:
they were introduced to Sir Tim, posed for photos with men resplendent in
uniform, even trying on a busby for size on their little heads...
I can barely describe
the sense of honour and privilege I felt, which was, I think, shared by most of
the other guests. (There were, of course, those so distinguished that it was
certainly not the first time they had been invited to the palace, Sir Tim
Lawrence of course predominant among them.) I felt most incredibly ‘special’
that was not personal in any way: nothing I had done, no sense of pride or
accomplishment. Just a sense of receiving an undeserved honour and of being
invited into the highest place in the land. It was mindblowing to think that
the Queen was elsewhere in the building.... It was all magical, like something
out of a fairy tale...
So, a few days
later, I am still reeling from the experience. One delightful thing I take away
is that I was just.doing.my.job. I use
it as example for the children: perhaps a boy feels unimportant because he is
playing a back in the B team when he longs to be captain of the A team. “Just
do your job,” I tell the children. “Do your job as well as you can, and better.
For who knows where it might take you?”
Certainly I had
never, ever, dreamed, in all my years of teaching, that simply doing my job as
a teacher would take me to Buckingham Palace. Wow. Indeed.
