Tony’s party reign check
Palace invite for amputee, 9, forced to miss bash
DOUBLE amputee Tony Hudgell’s sadness at missing a Palace garden party due to traffic turned to joy when he received a royal invitation to try again.
The Pride of Britain winner, nine, was hugely disappointed when a lorry fire on the M20 stopped him making the event on Wednesday.
His adoptive mum Paula had tweeted that Tony would sadly not be able to get there – but he got a boost before bedtime with a message from the Royal Family account.
It said: “Sorry to hear this, Tony! We were looking forward to seeing you too. Fancy trying again another day? Leave it with us...”
Tony, who had both legs amputated after he was abused as a baby, has raised £1.8million for charity and was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to the prevention of child abuse. He is the youngest person to feature in the New Year Honours List.
Paula, 56, of West Malling, Kent, said: “We came home and by that time we were quite flat. Tony was disappointed.
“I saw the reply just before Tony went to bed and he went to bed feeling a lot happier.
“It’s left with the palace now and I am sure we will hear back at some point. We can’t do this year but hopefully we will in the next one.
“Hopefully by that time Tony will be out of his leg frame and he will be able to walk around the palace gardens. That would be our silver lining.” About 8,000 people attended the Sovereign’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace.
Paula said: “We had left home in plenty of time, four hours before we needed to be there, and it was only supposed to take us 90 minutes at most.” But due to the fire they were stranded for three-and-a-half hours.
“Initially, we were hopeful the road might open but knew it probably wouldn’t,” Paula said. “Our thoughts were with the lorry driver and thankfully he was OK. You just have to get on with it. We were standing on the motorway chatting to people. Tony was singing and chatting.”