One of the most memorable was when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth came to the town. This was down at the college down by the armoury; they went there and inspected the college cadets, the sea cadets, the army cadets and the boy scouts. The boy scouts they were doing a bit of cooking and I understand it was quite a good day in Marlborough because they went to the town hall, signed the visitor’s book, had a look at the mace. Fred Dobie was one of the mace bearers then and Jimmy Duck, as we called him, he was the Mayor at that time.
I was elected to the council in 1976 and in 1977, which was the Silver Jubilee Year, I was asked if I would be the Mayor, quite unknown I think for anybody to be asked so soon, but they said they thought it would be rather nice to have a woman as a Mayor during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee so with the great help from my deputy Mayor Ted Beacham, I had a very interesting and very worthwhile year. The main thing was the enormous tea party we had for all the children in the High Street, there were tables right down the middle of the High Street, I don’t know how many hundred children we entertained, but after they had their tea every schoolchild in the town had a celebration mug which we distributed. It was quite a fascinating time because at that time it was a carnival week, so there were all sorts of excitements and celebrations going on until it came to the end of the week when we had the procession, which started from the common as it still does, right down into the town and paraded through the town.