Anguillans of all persuasions had amply opportunity to see or even meet with the Earl and Countess of Wessex as they visited the tiny Caribbean island on Monday as part of their Diamond Jubilee tour on behalf of Prince Edward’s mother and Anguilla’s head of state, Queen Elizabeth II.
Edward and Sophie, as they are more commonly known, had a full programme during their one day. A Rally and March Past at the Ronald Webster Park in the capital The Valley started them off. Ironically it was here that only three days ago Anguilla honoured its ‘revolutionary’ leader and ‘Father of the Nation’ after whom the park is named, 86-year old Ronald Webster.
He led Anguilla’s rebellion and revolution in 1967 and 1969 against incorporation in the dependency of St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, and proclaimed Anguilla an independent republic. The islanders wanted to govern themselves, a sentiment that is still very present today, as shown by the speeches and support for Webster as Anguilla celebrated his 86th birthday – with a March Past no less.
Governor Alistair Harrison on that occasion hailed Webster as a revolutionary leader and paid tribute to him as Anguilla's first Chief Minister. He noted that during the revolution Webster had three important assets: unity, vision and courage. He said that all three remain important today and he congratulated Chief Minister Hubert Hughes and the Executive Council for aiming to live up to Webster's vision, the Daily Herald reported.
The royal guests went from the park to St Mary’s Church for a Commemoration Service, before splitting up. The Prince headed to the Heritage Museum and the Island Harbour, rejoined his wife for lunch with Governor Harrison at Government House. In the afternoon too had separate programmes, before getting together again for a reception at Government House to conclude the visit.
Anguilla, an island approximately 26 km long by 5 km wide at its widest point, is also the closest the United Kingdom gets to both France and The Netherlands, who share the neighbouring island of St Martin/Sint Maarten. Anguilla can easily be seen from there (on horizon in above picture), and is connected by short ferry to Marigot, in French St Martin (photo).
Queen Elizabeth II visited Anguilla twice, in 1985 and on 18 February 1994. In 1966 she snubbed the islanders, by visiting St Kitts, Nevis and the British Virgin Islands, but not Anguilla. © RB
Anguilla is one of 14 British overseas territories, the others being: British Indian Ocean Territory, Gibraltar, Bermuda, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory, St Helena and its dependencies (Ascension and Tristan da Cunha), Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, the Pitcairn Group of Islands, and the Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus.
You missed one visit Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh made to Anguilla. In 1985 she
went to Anguilla to confer a knighthood on Emile Gumbs, who had been Chief Minister of Anguilla for the longest of all PM's (13 years). She came at the request of Sir Emile, who modestly said that the Knighthood belonged to Anguilla as much as to himself.
Posted by: J.A Bradley-Gumbs | Thursday, September 06, 2018 at 08:22 PM