Our congratulations to Trevor Nicholas, the CEO of Aspire in Ryde, who recently was recognised for his work during a visit to Buckingham Palace Garden Party. Trevor shares his account of the day, in his own words, Ed
As I know is the case with all of the wonderful people chosen to visit the Buckingham Palace garden parties this year, I’m not quite sure how I came to be here. It is a huge privilege to be involved with Aspire and a real honour to be allowed to represent all of the staff and volunteers in this way.
They all deserved to be here and I definitely felt a bit of an imposter walking through the Palace gates. Our day out was both humbling and amazing, but because it involved us, just a little bit farcical. So, this is our warts and all account of what transpired…………
Start the day with a cuppa
The day started badly when at the Premier Inn buffet, I tried to make a cup of tea and mistook the milk dispenser for hot water. What do you do with half a mug of milk and a tea bag? Tip it in the drip tray. Nope.
Now there’s milk all over the place and people getting their cereal are wondering what I’m doing. Move on quickly…
Technology makes life easier
Now, what you need to know next is that firstly I said I’d charge Lucy’s phone overnight and forgot to switch it on and secondly, at some point in the morning I agreed to put her phone in my jacket pocket as it wouldn’t fit in her pointlessly small handbag.
What you also need to know is that I took two phones with me, one of which had run out of mobile data and the other one, due to my total incompetence with technology had deleted both the phone and camera apps making them unusable.
Oops
As we stood on the platform waiting for the train Lucy said, “Can I have my phone?”
I didn’t have it. I was reminded of the earlier conversation, at some length, which helped considerably, but not enough to actually make the phone materialise. Fortunately, it just spent the day in the car boot.
So it was that despite the numerous phones, charging and general prep work we found ourselves travelling with one phone that had data, but no ability to take photos or make calls and another phone that could do both, but had no data.
We’d have to wait until we returned to plaster pictures all over Facebook then.
Typically English weather
And so to London. Waterloo then underground to Green Park. Out into the open and……..it’s raining. A lot.
Out come the Poundland umbrellas and we start trekking through the park in a procession of well dressed people all trying to keep dry as they trundle along.
Sitting in puddles
After some queuing and security checks we make it into the gardens. It looks lovely, but it’s still very wet. Everyone heads for the tea tent. Some hardy souls actually sit on the drenched chairs outside the tent which basically means sitting in a puddle. Bit weird.
It stops raining for a while and we stand by a table.
Vicious umbrella
I head off for a minute to get us some of the cordial that they are serving. I return to find Lucy with blood on her face, umbrella and hand.
This is a surprise to her as she hadn’t noticed that in putting down the Poundland umbrella it has cut her finger. An interesting start to the afternoon.
They start serving food. This is great. Fancy little sandwiches and cakes and a cup of tea. So nice we go round again a little later, not sure if we were meant to.
We check out the loos……the fanciest temporary toilets ever. Very nice.
The Royal parade
When we come out everyone has suddenly lined up to welcome the royals coming out of their patio doors. So we line up as well, but can’t see much, especially with all the umbrellas.
Turns out we have Charles and Camilla, Anne and two people called Michael from Kent. Seen them on Wimbledon I think.
‘Whitty’ remark
They all wander down to their posh tent and we go for a wander around the lake. We pass Sir Chris Whitty. Lucy says a little too loudly, “Look it’s Charles Whitty.”
He looks over at her probably wondering what exactly he has to do to make people remember what his name is.
After-party pumps
The gardens and lake are beautiful and its actually quite a long walk around. Lucy abandons her heels and dons the after party pumps she has folded in her ridiculously small bag.
This starts a trend in other ladies abandoning their hurting footwear.
A game of sardines
We return to find we’ve missed the royals wandering about and talking to people and the heavens open again. We all play sardines in the tea tent.
Then it’s time for the royals to saunter back to the house and so we line up again. This time we are more successful and see them all close up as they pass.
Typically English weather II
And then it’s time to leave. As we head out of the Palace grounds and back through the park the sun comes out and about a thousand bedraggled people all turn to each other and say, “Well that’s just typical isn’t it!”
And that was it. Over too quick but an amazing experience and the weather really just made it all a bit more so.
What I learned
And what have I learnt from it all?
- There are a lot of people around doing a lot of good things and it’s inspiring to know that.
- Posh people are just normal people in silly hats
- Poundland umbrellas are really vicious
- I really should start listening to my wife rather than just agreeing to stuff without taking it in.
- All ladies should carry after party pumps in pointlessly small handbags, although if they didn’t they might fit a phone in!
