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A Christmas Celebration -
in aid of Royal British Legion
Wednesday 11th December 2019
Come, all ye Faithful, The First
Nowell and Hark! The Herald-
Angels Sing), led by The Bach
Choir, who interspersed these
Carols with beautiful
arrangements of choir-only
ones. Accompanied by Organist
Philip Scriven and The Central
Band of The Royal British
Legion, it made for a very
festive event. Celebrity readings
were delivered by Phil Davis,
Lesley Joseph and Sophie
Thompson.
S
upporters of the Royal
British Legion were out
in force for the annual
Christmas Celebration at
Guildhall, London. Now in its
25th year, this event has
gone from strength to
strength, attracting regular
guests from Scotland and
this year even as far away
as California!
The drinks reception was held
in the Old Library. Wine and
soft drinks were offered by
waiting staff, while plates of
mince pies were on tables for
guests to help themselves.
They were still warm, and
served with brandy butter, so
this created a rather crumbly
but yummy handful. The room
was beautiful and set the
scene for the Celebration that
was to come. The original
medieval library was ‘borrowed’
by the Lord Protector in the
mid-sixteenth century to
furnish his new palace in The
Strand. Forgetting to return it,
(ahem!) the current Grade II-
listed Old Library was built in
1872.
We were invited to go through
to the Great Hall for the
Celebration. With no allocated
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THE LONDON & UK DATEBOOK
seating, we were delighted to
secure excellent seats near the
front of this stunning venue.
The Great Hall has been used
as the setting for the Lord
Mayor’s Banquet since 1502;
the Great Hall still sees regular
City governance - the Court of
Common Council (the
governing body of the City
Corporation) meets every
month and the Liverymen elect
the new Lord Mayor each year.
The evening was hosted
excellently by TV presenter Ben
Shephard. The Royal British
Legion, and this annual event,
are very important to Ben. We
only learnt at the end of the
evening that it was, in fact, his
Birthday but he was only too
delighted to give up his evening
and celebrations in order to
participate in this event. We all
enjoyed joining The Bach Choir
in singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to
him!
The evening featured audience
participation Christmas Carols
(Once in Royal David’s City, It
Came Upon the Midnight Clear,
O Little Town of Bethlehem, O
The lighting effects projected
onto the back wall were very
pretty and a lovely touch but
the only disappointment was
that the lighting was set so low
and the text in the programme
so faint that it was not possible
to see the words to join in
during the audience-
participation carols. This was
very atmospheric, but not very
practical if you want your
audience to sing! Even if you
sing these carols regularly, it is
not possible to remember every
word of every line.
However, it was a delightful
evening! The Royal British
Legion deserves to raise an
enormous amount of money to
support the work of the charity,
concerning the care and
welfare of the Service
community, both past and
present, and will continue to do
so in the future. Lest we forget.
The Central Band of the Royal British Legion under the baton of Director of Music, David Cole OBE.
JULIA BURT