Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited to see my father honoured with an MBE for many years of service to the community in Essex.  The day started ordinarily enough with an early start to get into London.  I thought that leaving 3 hours to do the 35 miles to Buckingham Palace was a little excessive .. but what did I know?  By the time we'd done a little tour of Docklands, ignored the Sat-Nav several times as it wanted to go the wrong way, and negotiated the good 'ol London traffic we arrived precisely on time.

 

Having been directed into the inner-courtyard to park alongside the others who had chosen to drive (including a rather nice Roller from the Ritz) we were then ushered in the main entrance and to our seats - father with the other recipients and us as a family in the Banquetting Hall.  Looking through the order of the day, it turned out that Dad was to receive his MBE towards the end which was nice as it kept us awake in what was a somewhat repetitive ceremony ... 109 people were receiving awards that day.  As the Queen was busy Googl'ing and preparing to host our magnificent Olympians later in the day, Prince Charles presented the awards - I thought it rather nice for Dad to receive his gong from the future King.

 

As we checked where Dad was in the list, we noticed that he was immediately after Paul O'Grady (with the daytime show and him of Lily Savage fame) - aparently he was quite amusing to stand next to in the queue and was desperate for some toast having missed breakfast.  The presentation itself took a minute or so with Charles having a nice chat to Dad ... about Scouting aparently.

 

After the ceremony was completed there was a grand photo shoot and then we went for a fabulous lunch at Rules in Covent Garden - what a feast.  The food, the wine, the service and the company were all superb and I can thoroughly recommend it for those special occasions.

 

All in all a fantastic day to remember and a lifetime of pride in my father's achievement.  We weren't allowed to take photos during the ceremony, but I've uploaded a few from the photo session afterwards in the photo area.