Image credit: Ledbury Reporter

Today we lost our Queen.

Queen Elizabeth II was the finest example to all of us.

While we mourn our loss we should look back and remember all the good things that she stood for, and there are so many.

You will read the amazing tributes from all over the world trying to describe her as genuine, affectionate, respectful, wise and so much more.

All true but as I watched on television people in Windsor putting flowers outside Windsor Castle I couldn’t help but feel but that is exactly what the Queen would have liked the most.

The love and respect of the people whom she loved and gave her whole life to serve.

We have been blessed to have seen her reign.

I met her several times and I always felt that it was a privilege and an honour.

She was interested in all of us and expectedly courteous and polite but with a marvellous and slightly wicked sense of humour too.

My strongest and happiest memory of the Queen was when she visited Hereford for the Golden Jubilee celebrations.

She arrived in the Royal Train and was driven around the City before walking about meeting people on the George V playing fields.

I followed a short distance behind her and was delighted to hear just how happy and excited people were because she had spoken to them.

It is hard to rationalise but wonderful to witness exactly how she brought so much joy to their lives, with just a few words.

Perhaps it is because she represented and brought out in all of us everything that makes us so proud to be British.

She embodied as one person our history, our pageantry, our commonwealth, dignity, tolerance, diplomacy, kindness, the importance of family and so many other qualities.

Even a love of horses.

No easy person to follow yet we are very lucky that King Charles III has been acting for the Queen for some time now.

I cannot overemphasise what a marvellous man I think he is.

I admire the same qualities in him that the Queen had and the service given to us by them.

A life of constant media pressure, public criticism and endless scrutiny.

Yet he pioneered the environment long before climate change was in our consciousness.

The Royal Family must feel the loss of the Queen even more than we do and so our thoughts and prayers should be with them.

We owe it to her memory to build on her qualities as a resounding legacy and to serve and support, her son, our new King.

Long Live the King!