It was the Queen's Jubilee five years ago, and the village organised a carnival .
The committee, of which I was not a part of, wanted a carnival queen crowned for the day and wisely plumped for a queen of advanced years rather than your typical fresh faced little ingenue.
Auntie Glad was their first choice, but typically her modesty would not allow her to be the centre of all the attention,so the net was cast in the search of a stand in.
Beryl was a stalwart of the village. Cultured, with a noticeable delusion of grandeur, she was a church
going, community council attending volunteer Diva who had no small talent of rubbing certain people up the wrong way with her "grand ways" . Indeed one village bigwig wryly referred to her as
" The Queen of Sheba" but she was a proud woman who worked hard for her community and her friends.
Now, Beryl was then starting with the early signs of dementia. She was also somewhat lonely having two sons who led busy lives down south and whom never really visited but she certainly enjoyed being the centre of attention, when attention reared it's head so she was tickled pink when the committee asked her to be the carnival queen.
Out of the blue...I found myself remembering her today with some affection, sitting on top of a pony pulled buggy with her crown and best coat on. The buggy trotted through Trelawnyd on a sunny Sunday afternoon and the whole village came out to wave and cheer at her and she lapped up every minute of it like the Queen she was!
It was like something out of a movie