The Queen has said she is looking forward to an end to 2024, as she welcomed the families of seriously ill children for a festive feast at Clarence House.
Camilla was hosting her heartwarming annual Christmas lunch for youngsters supported by two of her patronages, the children’s hospice Helen & Douglas House and Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity.
Marie Verney, 48, who attended with daughters Katie, 17, and 12-year-old Faye, who has complex medical needs, chatted to Her Majesty at length after she had served up plates of sausage and mash in the shape of smiling faces and spooned gravy onto the plates of the youngsters invited to her annual festive lunch.
Marie, who was widowed when Faye was a baby, said of Camilla: "She was very understanding and sympathetic of people's lives. And her life hasn't been easy this year, has it? She said she'd be glad to get to the end of the year and I think a lot of the families feel like that as well.
© Getty"So there was that mutual understanding, but also, she's a fun grandma. She talked about her granddaughters herself because they are 17, like Katie. She's a really down to earth lady and put us at ease.
"To me it was as though she was like a grandma, the concern, but also the fun - she's mischief. She said to Katie have you got a drink? She had elderflower. She said: 'Surely you'd like champagne?' Katie said yes. Next thing you know, she'd gone and got a glass of champagne for Katie and then she talked to Katie about driving and driving lessons, and then more serious stuff."
© GettyMarie, who along with her daughters has been supported by Helen & Douglas House, added: "When you have a child with profound additional needs, life is quite insular, and the fact that you're welcomed in to do something magical is quite amazing. It's lovely to be included in things."
Eight children helped by the hospice and the Roald Dahl Marvellous Children's Charity sat around a table covered in candy canes, sweets, gingerbread biscuits and chocolate Santa figures after helping to decorate a twinkling Christmas tree in the Library.
© GettyThey watched and helped as Major Ollie Plunkett, the Queen's Equerry, used his sword to place baubles and other ornaments onto its branches.
The Queen, in a royal blue velvet coat dress by Edina Ronay, a diamond and sapphire brooch and a small bee brooch, helped the children to choose decorations, telling Lenny, "I think the mouse, Lenny," and scooping up another decoration which dropped from the branch she had placed it on to try again.
© Getty Images"Ollie, how's the swordplay going?" she asked her equerry. And as she helped Sadie Simons and Chloe Carter, both nine, to place others on the tree, she told them: "My goodness me, you're doing brilliantly."
Shailza Leaver gave Major Ollie a very special bauble to hang featuring a picture of her son, Stanley, who died two years ago at the age of eight and a half from the same genetic and neurological condition that her surviving son, Riley, 11, suffers from.
© POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesShe said: ‘Helen & Douglas House is like my second home, they are amazing. They wrap their arms around me and keep me whole. When I lost Stanley my worst scenario would have been for him to die in an ICU unit in hospital covered in tubes. Instead, he slipped away peacefully in my arms at Helen & Douglas. We don’t know how much time we have with Riley. His condition has gone down in the last six months. But we want it to be happy. And being here with the Queen it is truly a magical, magical memory. So special."
Among the children was Lenny Willans-Jobson, five, who is one of just three children in the county to have Fox G1, a life-limiting condition.
His mother, Kelly Johnson, sadly died in March and he was accompanied by his stepmother, Natasha Wilkinson, from Middlesbrough.
© Getty ImagesThe Queen admired his “very smart dinner jacket and loafers”, prompting Lenny to smile broadly.
Natasha said afterwards: "What an incredibly special day. I just can’t believe we are here. He hasn’t stopped laughing and smiling. What a wonderful thing for her to have done for the children."
After lunch, Camilla handed out party bags containing velvet and gold dressing up crowns, giant chocolate coins, teddies in bearskin hats and reindeer bells on leather straps bearing each child's name.
© Getty ImagesShe was presented with flowers by the two charities and gave an impromptu speech, telling guests: "I want to wish you a very, very happy Christmas and say how wonderful it has been to have you all here today and as I always say, every year, it's the start of Christmas for me and I’m sure a lot of others who come here every year, to see how wonderful it is and the pleasure it gives the children and also the parents, because they need a lot of looking after as well.
"I think it's so important for these two absolutely fantastic charities both of which I'm so proud to be patron of. We have Father Christmas this year, but I must apologise, no reindeer, they've been put in quarantine!
"If you look in your party bags you'll find a very special present from them as well."
© Getty ImagesEarlier the Queen had been welcomed to the party by Father Christmas himself. "Ah hello Santa," Camilla said. "And a very happy Christmas to you."
"I'm pleased to tell you that you are on the good list again this year,” he said, shaking her hand. "Oh am I?" The Queen exclaimed. "Oh I am delighted."
Taking her gift she said: "You are very kind. Thanks so much for coming."
Asked what was in the gift-wrapped parcels, Father Christmas said, "I could tell you, but Mrs Claus might shoot me."
He had made a special stop off at Clarence House after their usual visitors, a pair of reindeer, were unable to attend because of Defra regulations around an outbreak of bluetongue virus, but guests were assured that the restrictions do not apply to Santa's own animals.
And he brought plenty of fun as he taught the youngsters how to flick gold chocolate coins across the white tablecloth at one another.
Holly Sparks, who along with daughter Maisie Reid, five, posed for photographs with the Queen, said of the event: "It's like all our Christmases have come at once. It's so special, so memorable, and it's memories that will last a lifetime."
