Mayor, Santa, or Queen?
What’s the difference between the Mayor, Santa and the Queen?The answer is not as straight forward as you might think, especially if you are a 7 year old child.
There are many similarities between them. The Mayor and the Queen are both important women who wear robes and chains of office; the Mayor and Santa both wear red.
On a visit to the Junior School of the Royal Alexandra and Albert School to announce the runners up of the Mayor’s Christmas card competition, Mayor Spiers sparked an interesting debate amongst the children: was she the Queen or Santa?
Two Year 3 children were overheard having a heated discussion on the subject. One was adamant that the Mayor was in fact Santa, after all she was wearing a red robe and black boots. However, this was forcefully rejected by the other child – the visitor was obviously the Queen because of her shiny gold chains.
The matter was still not settled when a child asked Mayor Spiers if she was the Queen. Mayor Spiers gave an excellent explanation that, although she was not the Queen, she was the Queen’s representative in the borough.
The answer did not convince a Year 4 pupil who asked, somewhat suspiciously, “Do you have a throne?”
Mayor’s Spiers answer that she did not have a throne, cemented one child’s view, once and for all, the Mayor was Santa!
Even though many of the children were confused by the Mayor’s true identity (a consensus was not reached), they were delighted that two members of the Junior School, Evie Owsnett and Mario Diodato, were runners up in the Mayor’s Christmas card competition and will have their designs on the back of the Mayor’s official Christmas card. Their designs were chosen from hundreds of entries submitted from across the borough.
Evie and Mario were awarded lovely certificates and a visit to the Town Hall for the whole Junior School.
Dr Ines Salman, Head of the Junior School, commented on the day, “The Mayor’s visit was a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to meet an important representative of our borough. Mayor Spiers was personable and had great interaction with our children, all of whom were very excited to meet her.”
One has to wonder… how many children went back to their classrooms in the sure knowledge that they had met the Queen… or Santa?
Probably most of them.
03 December 2015
