When local girl Kate Middleton made good and bagged Prince William you’d expect the community she hails from to have a quick whip-around and get the loved up couple a nice wedding gift, right?
Well, not necessarily, it would seem.
When Mary Bayliss, the Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire, Kate Middleton’s home county, asked local communities to pitch in to pay for an engraved silver plate commissioned especially for the royal wedding she was politely rebuffed at least one community, The Telegraph reports.
Cold Ash Parish Council based a few miles from Middleton’s home parish of Bucklebury, voted against the royal wedding gift request. “Some of our members are republicans and were strongly against it,” said parish chairman Gill Hall.
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“We have a budget which does not include an item for such matters. Although we represent the parishioners we felt we could not contribute without consulting them.”
Which is fair enough since they put it like that.
But local councillors from the parish of Bucklebury, where Miss Middleton’s family live, have been more forthcoming and agreed to donate a “small but significant contribution” towards the royal wedding gift.
“We felt very much as the bride-to-be is a parishioner and one of us in Bucklebury it was very appropriate that the parish council should make a contribution,” said Barry Dickens, vice-chairman of Bucklebury Parish Council.
Question: what would the happy couple want with an engraved silver plate anyway? Bloody silly idea. Maybe Kate and William would prefer something useful like a toaster or a juicer or one of those thermomaters you stick in a roast? Just a thought.
The Royal Wedding will take place at Westminster Abbey on April 29.
