queen

One of the pleasures of visiting our twin city in Russia is
awarding prizes to the winners of the Yaroslavl Regional
school's English essay competition, and see first hand the
positive effect our sponsorship has for the local
schoolchildren.

This year's subject was "a letter to the Queen and a letter to
Vladimir Putin", in which the children freely expressed their
aspirations, dreams and concerns on their lives and the
things that affected them.

After the ceremony the competition's organiser explained to
all present at the ceremony that all the children understood
that it was only an exercise and that they were not really
writing to the Queen. But that despite this, the letters
expressed their genuine feelings.

The look on the children's faces made it plain that they had
wished all along that this was not the case. I couldn't resist
the opportunity, so announced that we would send them to
the Queen for them.

For a few seconds you could have heard a pin drop. Needless
to say, their eyes lit up, and it took me at least five minutes
to get the organiser to finally grasp the fact that this was
possible.

The essays were duly sent, and we received a reply within a
week requesting that we convey to the children how pleased
the Queen was to see their well-written and interesting
works. A copy of the letter has been given to each child and
one to their school for display on their notice board.

Also in her letter the Queen said that she was interested to
hear about the twinning link between Exeter and Yaroslavl
and about our organisations valuable efforts to promote
contacts between the citizens and businesses of Exeter and
Yaroslavl.

This goes to show that all it takes is a little faith, and a
postage stamp, and you can do things others think
impossible.