...at schools across Britain and this means a flurry of prize-presentations and similar activities. I recently gave away prizes for the Children's Handwriting and Artwork Project, won by pupils at the Princess Frederica CofE primary school in Kensal Rise in North London. I'd never heard of Princess Frederica before, and so dived into the internet to find out more...as I had suspected, she was a sort of spare Hanoverian Princess, cousin of Queen Victoria, living in London and Biarritz etc - it is strange to ponder her life, as she didn't die until 1926 and so lived through the collosal changes brought by WWI. How strange to be a German princess, staying regularly at Windsor Castle and at Osborne, helping with Good Works (a Home for Foreign Governesses, and churchy things and schools and colleges and so on and so on...) aboslutely part of the established order of things...and then to find yourself in that summer of 1914 seen as an enemy, an alien, with a dreadful foreign name and title...
The London primary school that bears her name is a cheery place and I was made most welcome...a lovely Morning Assembly, and the children all knew the Lord's Prayer (which was central to the Handwriting Project, for which I was giving out the prizes) and it was lovely to hear the great chorus of their voices as we prayed together...
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