To the Tower with the scoundrel and don't spare the horses!

"Good afternoon Mr Brown", said the friendly policeman as he handed back my passport and invitation at the main gates of Buckingham Palace last week. "Just follow that lady with the pink hat over there and go through the central entrance". As Jacquie and I walked across the Queens courtyard towards the Palace doors, my stomach churned for a moment and I began to feel a tear welling up inside. It was indeed quite an emotional experience. Reading the pages of The Royal Garden Party website it states that guests are invited because of their good works in the community.

 Thousands had been there before me, thousands have received an invitation to the Royal garden party, but I was the first of our particular line of Browns ever to enter through those gold trimmed gates and I felt honoured to be there. 

Security was tight and with very good reason, the gardens were packed with the great and the good from all over the British Isles and beyond. Marksman lined the rooftops of the Palace, the constant hum of nearby helicopters, always just within reach in case of trouble, were always just far enough away so as not to be too much of an intrusion. There was, of course, no trouble whatsoever but with every major Royal present, ex Prime Minister John Major, cabinet ministers Liam Fox and Patricia Hewitt and bundles of a,b,c and d list celebrities too numerous to mention, the Yeomen of the Guard certainly had their work cut out.

We walked arm in arm, Jacquie and I, onto the Queens lawn, ( Judges report read "a bit raggedy at the edges, well worn but with very few weeds") bathed in glorious sunshine which lasted throughout our stroll around the extensive gardens. It was reminiscent of a scene from a Sunday evening Georgian drama series, with all the cast in their finery, genteely meandering along the myriad of paths that appear to criss-cross the Palace grounds, occasionally exchanging a smile, a nod of the head or an unspoken "How do you do" as they passed like ships in the night. 

"Look at that Hydrangea!", I said to Jacquie, "My goodness that's beautiful.... it doesn't have any perfume but the colour is astounding". It was bursting with flower and fresh new buds, all of them capable of re-use as thousands of cuttings, but dare I pinch a cutting from the Palace gardens?. "Off with his head !", I could hear the cry coming from the judges bench. "To the Tower with the scoundrel and don't spare the horses !". 

After a final lap around the lake we arrived at the tea tent, just in time for tea and cakes and of course, cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off (we all knew that we'd be getting those didn't we). 

The band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards played their triumphal, rabble rousingly patriotic tunes from a nearby marquee as we queued for our tea but....just before we reached the front the music stopped, everyone went deathly silent and turned away from the table which groaned with the weight of the food, "It must be the Queen", said Jacquie just as the National Anthem began to waft across the lawns. We stood, as did everyone else, in deferential silence, like human statues turned to stone before the Emperors gaze.

In a few moments the National anthem finished and we all relaxed again. The Queen made her way down the steps of the terrace and across the lawns to the Royal enclosure, stopping and chatting to her subjects as she passed. Half way along her path through the garden the heavens opened and we were all treated to a right Royal soaking, but it didn't really matter, nobody really minded, we were just all so happy to be there.

FROCK WATCH.......report............

The Queen wore a brilliant green two-piece outfit with a matching hat. The green theme was followed along with a see-through, wrap-around umbrella, which sported a matching green stripe along the bottom edge.

 Charles, Philip and Edward wore traditional tails and the ladies, Camilla, Sophie and Princess Anne wore cream, blue and magnificent ice green colours respectively. Young Pippa Middleton was there as well with her parents and she too looked as much at home as the rest of the Royal entourage in a short, dark blue flowing and billowing skirt that was, untraditionally, above the knee and showed almost no sign of that now, world famous bum.

Separated by a red rope, the two parties, the Royals and the Commoners took their tea and chatted politely until, at 5.50 the Queen left to a rapturous applause from all of her guests. It really had been a wonderful afternoon, three hours in the very heart of London and it felt as though we were hundreds of miles away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

 We were told beforehand that we couldn't take cameras with us and that mobile phones had to be switched off before entering the Palace grounds, but at five minutes to six, as we made our way back to the terrace and the doors that led to the real world beyond, we couldn't help but notice that almost every one had their phones out and were taking photo's in the grounds. "I may never get another chance to visit this garden", said one very well dressed chap standing next to me, " We have to leave the Palace in a little over three minutes and I'm sure that they won't kick me out now and anyway, how can they possibly confiscate all of the 'phones, or delete all these photos, they'd be here all night".

Yes, we took photo's inside too, but they're a bit too blurry for publication. As for the cuttings.........did we get any?..........well, that would be telling...... you never know we might just get asked to the Palace again.

New Beginnngs

Hello, my name is Ernie Brown and I'd like to thank you for visiting my first ever computer Blog.


I've been writing a regular, weekly column for local newspapers throughout Lincolnshire for the past 4 years now, but these are destined to be my first tentative steps away from the printed page and into an adventure through the deepest, darkest depths of the Blogosphere.


I'm 48 years old and married with 3 grown up children. Apart from the very barest minimum of pensmanship which was required of me to progress through the ramshackle education system that existed over a quarter of a century ago, I'd never felt the need to write down a single word, except of course for the usual job applications. That was, until the day when I was jolted from my somnolent torpor by our cash-strapped local authority! 


My life took a very different turn on Christmas Eve, 7 years ago, when our local Authority delivered a careless message through our letterbox, warning us of an impending allotment rent rise of a massive 700%. My young family of 5 was going to be badly hit by this rent rise and with my wife's help, we began a campaign to stop it. 


Within a couple of weeks of frantic email writing, I 'd appeared live from Beacon Hill Allotments during BBC 1's The Politics Show, spoken live on You and Yours, on BBC Radio 4 as well as written articles and quotes for loads of other magazines and newspapers throughout the country, we even featured in Gardeners World Magazine. The highpoint for me though, was watching the TV footage of our local rent rises being discussed by Parliament in the main chamber of the House of Commons, live on Sky TV.


 The campaign came to a sudden end. The local council agreed to proceed with the rent rise and we were forced to admit defeat.


 A few of us on Beacon Hill Allotments became worried about our future on the land which we'd been tending for many years. We'd all been working as individuals on a very large, 9 and a half acre site which was only 52% occupied at the time and with tenant numbers that were dwindling fast. The other, derelict and decrepit 48% of the allotment site was in a terrible state, with rubbish and untamed brambles roving wild and free for as far as the eye could see. Not a very attractive proposition for an allotment virgin to be faced with on their inaugural visit. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we gathered together a few like-minded allotmenteers, formed a fully constituted Beacon Hill Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Society and as Vice Chair, I began writing a mountain of press releases and newsletters.


 In December 2006 our family moved house to Caistor, a pretty little market town, nestled into a fold on the western edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds. One day, on a midweek shopping trip to the areas only major supermarket at nearby Market Rasen, I decided to drop into the offices of the Market Rasen Mail, to see if they were interested in printing some of my more focussed, vegetable gardening scribblings. "Can you write me a weekly gardening column starting next week? I'll need the first by Monday!", said the Editor.


For the next year and a half I wrote a weekly, 600 word column, called 'Digging Deep with Ernie Brown'. It was soon being syndicated throughout all of the local Lincolnshire Newsgroup papers from Stamford to Skegness and across to Gainsborough. My column was all about vegetable gardening and even though I only got paid 2p a word, I enjoyed every moment. It was my first paid writing job and I was very proud of it. My intentions were good, 'Digging Deep' did begin as a vegetable gardening column, but I learnt very quickly how to stretch out the facts and embroider the details to make them a little bit  more interesting and, obviously by the same token, allowing me to rake in a few more of those 'golden' 2p's. I was also hoping that in the long run, I could capture the attention of those who weren't all that bothered about getting their hands dirty, but who liked to hear a good yarn. 


It was during those early years at Caistor that I was invited to become the Chair of the Heritage Committee of the Grimsby, Cleethorpes and District Civic Society. Within a few weeks, with their full support, my wife and I set up what was soon to become, the Gold Award winning Grimsby in Bloom campaign. Our local paper, the Grimsby Telegraph, whose editor Michelle Lalor was also a member of our 'Bloom' committee, asked if I would write them a regular weekly column about the progress of Grimsby in Bloom, which they could use in their weekly free distribution paper, the Target.


 I would have to do it voluntary of course, it was, after all, a free paper, but it would give me the opportunity to hone my writing skills and would also give me the soapbox from which I could promote Grimsby in Bloom...... to the hilt.


Well, that just about brings you up to date on the journey along my writing pathway. Last week, after writing 130 weekly columns for the Grimsby Telegraph sister paper. All of them containing around 700 words each, spread out over 2 and a half years and amassing over 90,000 words, my wife and I decided to resign from our voluntary posts as Chairman and Secretary of Grimsby in Bloom.


 Consequently , 'Ernies Bloom Blog' made its final appearance last week. A sad, but true fact and one which brings me neatly back around to the beginning of this computer Blog. Y'know, after 4 years of leisurely writing a weekly newspaper column on a Sunday afternoon with my feet up on the sofa, this has all come as a bit of a shock to me. I am without an audience, nobody is listening to me and I have no obvious reason to write down my thoughts, but I still feel compelled to put pen to paper and air my views. Maybe this Blog can grow to become my new outlet, it's worth a try, nothing ventured nothing gained!


Anyway, if you've been reading this Blog in the hope that I might spill the beans and reveal all of the gory details about our sudden resignation from Grimsby in Bloom, one week ago, on New Years Day 1.1.11, then I'm sorry, you'll have been disappointed. My cup is still half full and I can assure you that there's been no spilt milk to cry over. But, we all know that these things will always, always, come out in the wash......... sooner or later. 


If you would like to read any more about Beacon Hill Allotments, Ernie's Bloom Blog or even 'Digging Deep with Ernie Brown', they're all on my website, www.erniebrown.co.uk. 


Or, you could always just keep on tuning in to this Blog site and hear it all, as it happens, straight from the horses mouth! 


Thanks for listening.


Ern x