A SCHOOL dinnertime supervisor has been treated to a right royal garden party at Buckingham Palace.

High Street primary staff member Tracey Adams was nominated to take tea with the Queen, at her London home, by deputy lieutenant Colin Jones, of Barry.

Tracey was nominated for the honour for more than 20 years of voluntary service – working in the community with young and old.

She received her letter in November last year and opted to go to the Palace, with husband Russ, last week (May 20).

Tracey, of the Coldbrook Estate, Cadoxton, said: “I thought it was an early Christmas card as it was just in a yellow handwritten envelope. When I opened it I read it and couldn't believe it and thought it was a joke.

“I read it a couple of times and was in shock thinking things like this don't happen to people like me. Lucy (her daughter) then took it and read it as well and said “it's true.” I was in shock!

“It said we could take a guest so of course I naturally took my husband. The letter said the invitation would arrive six weeks before the event and they gave us three dates to choose from.”

The couple took a National Express coach, booked into the Governor House hotel for a treat and went to see the musical Miss Saigon, fulfilling a long-held ambition.

They also had the additional bonus of seeing the Changing of the Guards with the Gurkhas and the Guards.

A walk down to Wellington Barracks saw them lucky enough see the Guards practicing for Trooping of the Colour, in all their uniforms and horses on parade, in June.

The Garden party palace gates opened at 3pm and welcomed around 1000 people.

Tracey said: “We went to the tea tent and joined the queue and got something to eat which were tiny sandwiches and tiny cakes. I'm just glad we'd had a cooked breakfast before we left the hotel otherwise we would probably have been hungry. The grounds of the palace were amazing, lush and green lawns and not wet at all really considering it had rained in the morning and a large pond with birds in it thankfully though it remained sunny during the garden party. We talked to a few people that were there and I also enjoyed 'people watching' and looking at how everyone was dressed. My husband bumped into a colleague that he use to work with when he was in the army so that made his day I think as well of course experiencing something that would probably never happen again. We mixed with 'ordinary' people like ourselves and all sorts of other dignitaries from other countries and everyone was treated the same. We saw the Beefeaters march across the lawn and stand outside the VIP part of the marquee. There were also two military bands play music throughout the afternoon. The Queen made an appearance at 4pm and walked amongst the crowd greeting people. We only got a glimpse of her going into her own Royal tea tent as there were so many people. The party finished at 6pm and as everyone left from the front door of the Palace there were loads of tourists flashing their cameras at people leaving. We then chilled in the hotel for the rest of the evening as our feet were aching a bit as we'd been on them all day.

When we got home it seemed all a bit surreal that it had happened, but we took lots of photos and video of our couple of days there.”