For a few weeks in February 2014 our village was the centre of media attention. The Thames burst its banks and flowed through the Main Street. Life took on a surreal quality. The media descended on us, the army and the fire brigade pitched in and ev...
The attentive among you will remember we live about a mile from Windsor Castle and can see it from our upstairs windows. However, you shouldn't assume we bump into royalty on a regular basis. We have more than our share of state occasions when the Queen can be seen gliding regally past if you choose to line the streets, but casual sightings are quite a rare event. It's rumoured Diana would slip out to Windsor shops occasionally but the Queen; well I can only assume she has her groceries delivered.
We've lived here about ten years and I've seen the Queen unexpectedly twice in that time. Once she was coming out of Windsor and Eton's Riverside Station, easily spotted albeit at a distance, because the whole station had been closed down and she appeared to have a whole train to herself. On the other occasion I impressed my daughter in law by taking her round the back of the castle to see the Long Walk just as the Queen drove out in a Range Rover doubtless bound for Ascot or something equally horsey.
Anyway the point is we rarely get to see royals much less speak to them or shake their hand so when we heard that the Royal princes William and Harry were rumoured to be somewhere in the village we were curious to catch sight of them. We waded round the village in somewhat cursory fashion picking up rumours of where they were likely to but it always seemed to be somewhere else. They were to pitch up at the end of our road but for the moment they were nowhere to be seen.
Piecing their movements together from press reports it appears they made an early 7am start at the golf club. If that seems a strange first stop it made sense because, if you remember, the golf course is the flood plain and the point at which the river had burst its banks. Repairing breaches of the flood defence there was vital to protecting the village from further flooding. This wasn't suited and wellie booted glad handing appearance we had from politicians expressing their sympathy for the benefit of the TV crews the Princes came anoraked with a truck full of sandbags and a platoon from the household cavalry to shift sandbags and build walls.
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From there it seems they went to the parish offices to see the nerve centre of the operation so that, by the time they came to us they were accompanied by some of the parish councillors.
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