Ramblers’ royal invite
Two Ramblers volunteers were invited for an audience with the Queen in November, and neither missed the chance to promote the charity’s work to the monarch and her guests. Stewart Ramsden (left) and Margaret Bowdery attended the special reception at Windsor Castle, which celebrated people’s contributions to rural communities in the UK. “I told the Queen and Prince Philip about the good work that Get Walking Keep Walking is doing in Manchester,” said Stewart, who has led many walks in the Pennines for the project’s city-dwelling participants over the last two-and-half years. Margaret, a stalwart campaigner with East Berkshire Ramblers, called it “a great privilege and honour to represent the Ramblers” and was surprised to bump into one of her local council’s cabinet leaders among the guests. “I must have been the last person he expected to meet! But I took the opportunity to lobby him face-to-face about the controversial missing link in the Thames Path at Maidenhead, and it paid off. He’s promised to meet me for further talks soon.”
