Posts Tagged ‘Lord Lieutenant’

‘Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Kent…’

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

I am in Chilham tonight (18 June) for a drinks reception at the home of Allan Willett and his wife Anne.  Allan is the Lord Lieutenant of Kent which means he is the Queen’s representative and takes precedence over every other civic office holder in the County.

The invitation for the evening is a request from ‘Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Kent’.  The other guests are other District Council chairmen and their escorts, the chairman elect of Kent County Council, Viscount De L’Isle (the Vice Lord-Lieutenant for Kent) and a few of the Deputy Lieutenants. (See my post of 15 June about the Deputy Lieutenants).  The Lord Lieutenant has brought us together to help us get to know one another and to show his support for our civic roles.  He tells us that he will also hold a service in Maidstone in March to  mark the end of our civic year. 

We all swop stories about our civic duties to date and I discover that one chairman (Gravesham) has already clocked up 45 events.  Tonight is my 9th civic engagement and I don’t expect to go to more than about 200 events in the whole year.  Any organisation can ask the chairman to attend an event in our district and I, or the Vice chairman, will attend if we can but we don’t promise to match Gravesham!

Photo with the Lord Lieutenant to follow. 

The Lord Lieutenant’s website is at http://www.lord-lieutenant-kent.info/

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A visit from the Deputy Lieutenant

Monday, June 15th, 2009

The Lord Lieutenant of Kent is, like the High Sheriff, a long established office concerned with maintaining order, but whereas the High Sherrif has a link to law the Lord Lieutenant has a link to defence.  Today the Lord Lieutenant serves the monarchy in Kent and promotes the county’s history and culture. 

There are around 60 deputy lieutenants in Kent.  They include Jools Holland, Sir Robert Worcester (better known as Bob Worcester the pollster) and Roger de Haan.  Robert Alston, who has a house in Lydd, is the Deputy Lieutenant with a special repsonsibility for Shepway and this morning (15 June) he is at the Civic Centre to meet me in my role as chairman and the council leader, Robert Bliss.

Robert Alston explains the theme for this year’s lieutenancy -’ to acknowledge anything that represents a sense of community’.  We discuss what Shepway is doing and how we might help each other.  Robert also tells us something of his past diplomatic career which was mostly in the Middle East but also included a time as Governor of the remote community of Pitcairn.  He currently chairs the governors of the Marsh Academy. 

After our meeting I look Robert Alston up on the Lord Lieutenant’s website http://www.lord-lieutenant-kent.info/index.html and discover he has the following honours –  CMG QSO DL (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, Queens Service Order and Deputy Lieutenant).

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As the Lieutenancy has a special role in serving the monarchy, I took this photograph of Robert Bliss, Leader of Shepway District Council and Robert Alston, Deputy Lieutenant, in front of the portrait of the Queen that hangs in the chairman’s parlour.

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