WARMTH AND CHARM A FAMILY OF PIONEERS
While browsing through the spring 2022 issue of This England, I was pleased to see the article “Queen of Joanna Lumley’s Heart” and your question “Have you met the Queen”? Yes, we have met the Queen on three occasions during her visits to Canada.
On 6 July, 2010, we had the pleasure of speaking with Her Majesty at Queen’s Park, home of the Provincial Legislature in Ontario. I had taken my father’s military medals from the First and Second World Wars, with the hope that I would be able to share the fact that the Military Cross had been presented to my father by her grandfather at Buckingham Palace.
The Queen showed great interest in all eight medals in the shadow box and actually thanked me for bringing them.
Our extended conversation with the Queen of Canada was one which we shall never forget. Her Majesty’s warmth and interest ensured that we were neither “dim” nor “babbly” but delighted and extremely happy!
Thank you for letting us share again, this wonderful moment.
Kevin Dark, KStG, and Norman McMullen, KStG The McMullen Dark Collection of Royal Commemoratives, Ontario, Canada
I was very interested to read about Celia Fiennes in the winter 2021 issue of This England. The story was written by Derek J. Taylor, who described Celia as “one of the earliest explorers and recorders of life in England.”
The nursery rhyme Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, “to see a fine lady upon a white horse” was inspired by Celia Fiennes, and about her “great journey” in 1698. Her surname “Fiennes” was in the original rhyme, but decades later, it was changed to “fine”. A bakery in Banbury, Oxfordshire used the name “Fine Lady” for its bread.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the famous explorer and mountaineer, is a distant relative of Celia. No doubt his remarkable tenacity as a “doer” to achieve so much with his military background and expeditions is inherited from Celia and his father. Sir Ranulph’s father fought in World War II but was killed in a battle four months before Sir Ranulph was born. Joseph Fiennes, the actor, is also a relative of Celia.
In Derek Taylor’s feature, he writes about the 8th Lord Saye and Sele. Broughton Castle, near Banbury, has been in continuous ownership of the Saye and Sele family since 1377 and is open to the public at various times throughout the year.
Mary White, Leighton Buzzard, Beds.