It was a great honour to join His Majesty King Charles III in historic Westminster Hall to wish him well on behalf of constituents ahead of the historic Coronation weekend. To reflect this, I wrote to the King, on behalf of constituents, a letter of good wishes that can be seen on my website and social media. It was brilliant to share this experience with so many colleagues past and present including my wonderful predecessor, Lord Nicholas Soames.
We’d some fabulous events around the area to celebrate the King and Queen Consort’s Coronation which was beguiling to behold, emotional, sumptuous, full of pageantry and magical spectacle which made our nation rightly very proud. The weather may not have been brilliant but did not stop us marking this special occasion with many street parties and lovely formal events to herald this new Carolean era.
Across the Coronation weekend, I joined in with the East Grinstead celebrations – they’d a parade, big screen viewing, and lots of activities including judging their dog show! Haywards Heath organised a wonderful Royal Parade on Sunday; it was great to join with my Air Cadet daughter, many people and fantastic organisations marching through the town, onto the activities at Victoria Park. I later joined Scaynes Hill residents at St Augustine’s for their ‘Big Coronation Lunch’ and community awards.
This was the second weekend of positive activities here. Now in its 12th year, the Mid Sussex Marathon has gone from strength to strength with something for everyone of all ages and abilities, and it’s great to see people coming from far and wide to participate. The weather made some courses a little challenging, so it was a real pleasure to hand out medals to those finishing the East Grinstead and Haywards Heath races. With over 1000 people running this year, our unique three town Marathon was again a great success concluding in Burgess Hill and as the race founder I’m delighted. A huge thanks to the runners, volunteers, sponsors and organisers for making this happen as we look forward to the annual Haywards Heath Bike Ride this weekend.