A PENSIONER who recorded her memories of the Second World War in Kidderminster as part of a national project marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the conflict is "in a flutter" after being invited to a garden party hosted by the Queen.
Margaret Phelan said she was "absolutely elated" about going on a lunch date in the gardens of Buckingham Palace and is in a "dither" about what to wear.
"I'm looking forward to it enormously - I'm very excited," the Kidderminster-born and bred 78-year-old told the Shuttle/Times and News.
She explained she had received her royal invitation for Sunday, July 10 - designated as World War II Day - after sharing her memories of school and her first year of work for the National Milk Testing Scheme with the Voices From The Home Front Project.
Compiled by the National Pensioners Convention in conjunction with the Trade Union Council and London Metropolitan University, the project - funded by the Big Lottery Fund - aims to collect and record memories of what it was like to work during the war.
For this reason, Mrs Phelan also discussed her mother, Annie Pugh's, work as a cook supervisor at The Bowers Restaurant, in Kidderminster, which was started by a Government edict in 1940 to feed munitions workers.
She became involved in the project after seeing an advertisement in a newspaper for retired people and said: "You hear all about the evacuees and servicemen but you don't hear much about people just carrying on, so I told them what I could."
The pensioner added Kidderminster High School, which she attended until 1944, carried out a tremendous amount of "outreach work" during the war, including fire watching.
"If they dropped incendiary bombs you had to be alert and ready to deal with it ... you felt very apprehensive at times and frightened but, otherwise, determined to do what you could."
Of her first brush with royalty, the former dental hygienist added: "After the interview I was given some forms to fill in to apply for a seat in Whitehall or Westminster Abbey for the procession in London ... or lunch at the gardens of Buckingham Palace ... and I was absolutely elated when I got my invitation."
The widow will be taking her 50-year-old son, Gerard, and is also looking forward to viewing an exhibition, which she features in as part of the project, in St James's Park.
It is on display from Monday, July 4, until Sunday, July 10.
The interviews forming the project should eventually be accessible on the website www.unionhistory.info.
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