Congratulations to OM Times Editor, Trevor Taylor.

OM Times Editor Trevor Taylor meets Her Majesty The Queen at a private reception at the Royal Commonwealth Society, London this week.

(By Trevor Taylor LLB (Hons)- Member of the Royal Commonwealth Society Club, London)

On Wednesday the 14^th November 2012 I had the great privilege of meeting HM the Queen, who is also Head of the Commonwealth, at a private reception at the Royal Commonwealth Society in Northumberland Avenue, London.

It all started several months ago when it was suggested I put together some short written articles of the time I spent in my younger days in several Commonwealth countries. My father was posted to outposts in 3 Continents in his 30 years service with the Commonwealth Office, later to become the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was later awarded the OBE by the Queen.

I decided to write some short articles on East Africa, Malaya, and Belize (then the British Colony of British Honduras), in all of which I lived and went to school, interspersed with periods of boarding school in the United Kingdom. During this period in my life I also visited and stayed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Singapore, and Jamaica. I later lived and worked in Central and Southern Africa.

During my travels with my family in my early years I stayed at the hotel in Ceylon (Mount Lavinia Hotel) featured in David Lean’s classic film ‘The Bridge Over the River Kwai’ starring Alex Guinness. The film was actually shot in Kitulgala, Ceylon, (now of course Sri Lanka) and featured the stunning frangipani gardens of the hotel in some of the scenes with Jack Hawkins. In Singapore, I stayed with my family at the iconic Raffles Hotel, which is still featured as one of the world’s most atmospheric hotels.

My earlier adventures with my family took me from the UK to Jamaica by banana boat (Elders and Fyfffes line TS Camito) via Trinidad (‘Trini’) and Barbados. From Mombassa in East Africa to London by Union Castle Line, by P & O steamship to the Far East, and travelled almost the length of Malaya by steam trains at the time of the Emergency before Malaya’s Independence. So I had some adventurous and vivid personal memories to draw on for my articles.