As excitement builds ahead of the King’s Coronation in May, we have been encouraging our residents to look back on their memories of Royal celebrations and encounters.
Last week we spoke to ex-serviceman Leslie Wright, 84, who lives on our new Milton Lodge community at Ashlynn Grange Care Home, in Peterborough.
He met Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II twice – once while serving in the SAS and again while recovering in hospital from blast wounds.
Mr Wright said: “I was in the SAS, so the Queen was my boss. I joined at the age of 19 and was serving in Cyprus and a bomb went off. It blew my ear off and it shattered my leg.”
He was badly injured it was feared the worst, “I was treated in Cyprus for a year, they daren’t move me in case I didn’t survive the journey.”
He recalls a doctor who used to come and see him daily, massaging his leg wounds and saving his left leg from amputation.
During his recuperation he met the Queen for the second time and he has fond memories of seeing her. Although he recalls: “We were told not to say anything unless she asked us.”
Mr Wright and the whole Ashlynn Grange family will be celebrating the coronation of her successor, King Charles III, on Saturday, 6th May.
The home is hosting a King’s Banquet in the gardens with singing, live music and food fit for a king.
