People in Williams Lake will have the opportunity to pay tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II on Monday, Sept. 19 with a parade and memorial service.
It will take place the same day as the Queen’s state funeral will be held at Westminster Abbey at 11 a.m.
The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 139 will be taking part in a parade from behind the Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex to the Cenotaph outside city hall and conducting a memorial service that will include two minutes of silence at 11 a.m.
Legion member Bonnie O’Neill said legions are doing the services nationally.
READ MORE: VIDEO: Canadians join mourners from around the world in remembering the Queen in London
Midge Smith of Rose Lake has a fond memory of naming a horse in 1962 that was later presented to Queen Elizabeth 11 in 1969.
She was 17 at the time living in Regina and her father, Henry C. Forbes, was a commanding officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“Every year foals were named using a letter of the alphabet and one of the Queen’s horses was up to be named. Dad and I chose the name Burmese together as it had to start with B,” Smith told the Tribune.
The name seemed really sophisticated and sounded nice, which is why they chose it.
In an excerpt from the North-West Mounted Police, A Tradition in Scarlet, it notes Burmese was the first of three horses presented to the Queen.
“Her majesty rode Burmese for almost all of her public equestrian duties from 1969 to 1986. Burmese was retired in 1986 and passed away in 1990.”
Burmese was one of the few horses the Queen had buried on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
READ MORE: Schools, Crown Corps. to close as Horgan declares Sept. 19 a holiday to mourn the queen
monica.lamb-yorski@wltribune.com
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