Thursday 17th September 2009

MUNCASTER CASTLE
VISIT OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS, PRINCESS ALEXANDRA,THE HON LADY OGILVY,KG GCVO
12.30pm

Planning for this special day started in April or May and was a very great success, and we were blessed with a beautiful day.

Muncaster Castle is a wonderful venue and HRH was very impressed with it, and as she left said she hoped to come again.

Princess Alexandra was accompanied by her Lady-in-waiting, Lady Mary Mumford and her Private Secretary Mrs Diana Duke. She was greeted by The Lord Lieutenant and Mrs Cropper when she arrived and Mrs Iona Frost-Pennington. The Lord Lieutenant then presented HRH to my husband (I had been presented to her the previous evening)The Mayor of Copeland, Cllr Henry Wormstrup and Ms Lee Hodson, The Chairman of Cumbria County Council, Cllr Roger Bingham, Acting Corporate Director Adult & Cultural Services, Cumbria County Council, Mr Richard Parry, and the Acting Chief Executive of Copeland Borough Council, Mr Fergus McMorrow.

Iona Frost-Pennington then presented her husband, Peter Frost-Pennington, her parents Patrick and Philida Gordon Duff-Pennington, and their children, and the representatives of The Complimentary Care Centre, Hospice at Home,and also Mrs Joan Capp (with companion) and Mrs Judith Johnston.

Thereafter I introduced her to my own guests from the Military and Hospitaller Order of St Lazarus, The Princess Youth Business Trust, Cumbria Community Foundation (Crimebeat), Nuclear Management Partners Limited, The Hadfield Trust, My Chaplain, My elder son and his wife and two of my grandchildren, and not least my PA. HRH expressed great pleasure in seeing Dr and Mrs Geoffrey Thompson and Mrs Olive Clarke again.

The Royal party departed by car at 13.40 accompanied by the Police and The Lord Lieutenant and Mrs Cropper. Everyone present felt it was a special day and were charmed by the very real interest the Princess expressed.