In 2007 The Queen’s Birthday was celebrated in States and Territories, except Western Australia, on 11 June, following the actual birthday on 21 April. All ACM Divisions celebrated, most recently in New South Wales with a luncheon at the Castlereagh Inn in Sydney and in Victoria with a very well attended dinner at the Naval and Military Club Melbourne, where the guest speaker was the Hon Tony Abbott. In the meantime, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy has obtained thousands of signatures from all over the Commonwealth which were sent in specially printed card, bound with a blue ribbon and with a message of loyalty to Her Majesty. [A copy of this beautiful card can be ordered from the ACM national office.]
A most gracious reply has now been received. The message, together with the reply from Buckingham Palace, follows.
The following appeared on page 2 of the card:
[The photograph on the front page of this card accompanied a story by Peta O’Sullivan in The Sunday Times of 22 October 2006, which was also the subject of a report on the ACM website www.norepublic.com.au on 17 November 2006. It related to a class of Year 1 children at Newman College, in Floreat, a Catholic school in the western suburbs of Perth, in the State of Western Australia. The children were being taught the alphabet and had reached the letter ‘Q’. As part of the exercise, children were asked to write letters to The Queen. There was no intention that these would be sent to Her Majesty; this was only to be a class exercise. But when the children returned from their holidays they found a letter from Buckingham Palace awaiting them. "They were so excited about it," said teacher Mrs. Annette Rose. "All the Year Ones were learning about the letter Q, so I mocked up an A3 sheet with a crown at the top and got the kids to write letters to The Queen". The letters asked "Who cleans the palace?", "Do you get sick of waving all the time?" and "Do you like the King?" Mrs. Rose had no intention of sending the letters to the Queen and was as surprised as the children at the reply. But when one of the mothers, Andrea Whitely saw them in her daughter’s classroom, she told Mrs. Rose that she would be visiting Highgrove and would try to give them to Prince Charles and ask him to pass them on to H.M. The Queen. The royal response, passing on The Queen’s best wishes and congratulating the children on their beautiful work, was from The Queen’s lady-in-waiting, Susan Hussey. The children in the picture are, from left to right, 7 year old Sebastian Faugno, 6 year old Harrison Delaporte, 6 year old Catherine Whitely and 6 year old Eloise Krikstolaitis. The photograph was taken by Richard Hatherly, and is printed under a licence from News Limited.]
The third and fouth pages of the card follow:-
This was the gracious reply on behalf of Her Majesty:
