Only a week after it was revealed that King Charles’s royal jewellers had honoured Bangor by offering to restore its priceless but damaged 140-year-old civic mace, another Royal tribute has hit the city.
Bangor City Council has been invited to send a member of the Council to one of the most prestigious of this year’s Buckingham Palace Royal Garden Parties to mark the King’s coronation in May.
Steve Bell who represents the Hirael Ward as an independent councillor and is owner of the High Street shop, All Sewn Up, will now travel to London representing Bangor and for him it will be a day mixed with civic and family pride.
“Curiously enough, both my grandfather and grandmother were invited to attend similar Royal garden parties in their own right in recognition of their respective service to the RAF”, said Cllr. Bell.
“To represent the City of Bangor at this extra prestigious event will be a very true honour to me – and the City.”
Only three Royal Garden Parties are hosted at Buckingham Palace annually but this year’s May event only three days after the Westminster Abbey coronation will be the most prestigious.
Queen Victoria gifted the Corporation of Bangor Royal Charter in 1884 and then Prince of Wales, King Charles, was Chancellor of Bangor University.
Fellow councillor Mark Roberts will take Bangor’s ceremonial civic mace to Royal jewellers, Wartski of St. James, London next week after the family firm which was founded in Bangor in 1865 and which has held royal warrants since era of King Edward VII heard of the mace’s dire state and offered to repair it.
“Two royal contacts with Bangor in a matter of a week must be quite unique,’ said Cllr. Roberts, ‘but I think Cllr. Bell has the advantage; a Buckingham Palace royal garden party. The best I can hope for is a British Rail sandwich!” he laughed.
Photos: (1) KING CHARLES III WPA Pool/Getty Images (2) Steve Bell, Bangor City Councillor for Hirael Ward.
