Royal visit for Somerset Guides

Somerset

Guides had a Royal visitor to their special pageant at the Royal Bath and West Show.

 Girlguiding

UK are celebrating their centenary year and one of their many events was a

special Somerset Guiding Pageant held on the Village Green area. Girl Guides

and a few Brownies and their leaders from across the county joined together to

put on a show of singing, drumming and a parade of uniforms from down the

century. (See

gallery) 

Her Royal

Highness Sophie The Countess of Wessex, who is the new president of the Royal

Bath and West show and also a patron of GirlGuiding UK graced them with her

presence for the majority of the performance. The wife of Prince Edward used to

work in public relations before giving it up to take on Royal duties so was

quite at home with the media who surrounded her. She met with some of the

senior members at the GirlGuiding UK tent on the edge of the village green who

presented her with a centenary badge, then signed their visitors book before

joining the girls watching the show. Despite being in an immaculate fitted

white dress, the Countess impressed the crowd when she dismissed an offered

chair and chose instead to sit on the floor with the Guides for a while, and

chatted with them whilst watching the parade of uniforms through the ages. When

the choir began, she moved to the side of the stage and stood to listen before

thanking her hosts and moving on. It was a momentous occasion for the group who

were grateful for the amount of time the busy Royal visitor spent with them.

The

Somerset Guides spent the week camping at the show and working as messengers in

the searing heat, as well as carrying the signs ahead of the stock parade in

the main ring and passing the trophies for presentation, one or two looked a

little nervous around the stock, particularly some of the bulls who were

behaving very well despite entering the ring nose to tail with each other.

 It

wasn’t all work for the Guides and they were rewarded with canoeing and other

adventure activities available on site.