Category: Prague Expat Life

The Royal Visit – as it happened – part one

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall arrive at St. Clement's Church accompanied by the British Ambassador Sian MacLeod (far left) © Sybille Yates

Further to my previous posts entitled ‘A forthcoming Royal visit’, ‘Three days to go…….’ and ‘Only 12 hours to go…..’, today was the big day when, as part of their official visit to the Czech Republic, Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, joined the regular St. Clement’s Church congregation for our Sunday morning worship.

I set the alarm for 6am, just to be sure I had plenty of time to have a shower, eat breakfast and collect everything together, ready to travel into the city centre. In fact, the four-legged alarm clock called Oscar, landed on my bed before 6 am. I think he knew I had to get up early!

The 9.34am Number 8 tram duly carried Sybille and I from Podbaba to Dlouhá Trída in the 18 minutes it was scheduled to do, meaning that we arrived outside of the Church at about 9.55am, more than an hour before the Royal Party was due to arrive. However, the streets around the Church were completely clear of cars and numerous policemen were already patrolling. Only when I pointed to my clerical collar was I allowed to walk across the road and stand nearer to the Church. This rather confirmed my worst fears that the security concerns of the Czech police might prevent some regular members of the congregation actually getting to Church.

Our host congregation, the Ceskobratrské Cíckve Evangelické /the Evangelical Church of  Czech Brethren, were having their normal 9.30am service. As I stood near the door I could hear their hymn singing and the voice of Pastor Eva Halamová. However, Pastor Eva had previously promised that she would try and shorten their service a little and, true to her word, they finished at 10.15am, a full 10-15 minutes earlier than normal. As I entered the Church, Pastor Eva and I exchanged a hug as I thanked her for her cooperation and she wished me well for our service.

I was followed into Church by several Czech security personnel and a couple of sniffer dogs as the whole premises were carefully searched to see anything untoward could be found. Only  Churchwarden Gerry Turner, Sacristan Marshall Johnson and Welcomers Peter Morpuss and Amanda Neill, were allowed in until the search was completed.

Once the congregation were allowed in, the Church began to fill rapidly. It was good to see that many of the regular congregation had heeded my instructions and had come to Church in good time rather than dashing in at the last minute. And there were quite a number of somewhat unfamiliar faces who had obviously mainly come to see our Royal Visitors though many were friends and family of regular members of the congregation.

I was fortunately in the vestry when my mobile phone rang at 10.35am. It was Sher, an American member of the congregation saying that she and several other people were across the street from the Church but were being prevented from getting to Church by the police. I charged down the aisle still talking on my phone and was very helpfully followed by Gerry Turner and a couple of British diplomats from the Embassy. Between us we sorted things out and hopefully nobody who wanted to come to Church in the normal way was prevented from doing so.

However, one of my most abiding memories of today will be of an angry Gerry Turner telling a Czech policeman in no uncertain terms in Czech, that he was behaving like the police used to during the latter years of the Communist regime! Gerry can speak from experience having lived in Prague for ten years during the Communist era. I don’t think the policeman concerned was quite expecting that!

Gerry Turner and me waiting for the arrival of the Royal Party © Sybille Yates

By 10.50am, the Church was virtually full with only the reserved pews empty and the rarely used seats along the side walls also occupied. Sitting in many of these were a group of over twenty young people who I assumed had just come to see our Royal Visitors. My assumption proved to be completely wrong. They were a group of young Dutch Christians who had taken part in a competition which involved travelling in pairs and hitchhiking from Utrecht to Prague. They came to Church to worship totally unaware that we were expecting special guests!

Soon after 10.50am, I spoke to the congregation reminding them of the note in the front of the Order of Service about turning off mobile phones and that no photography or videoing of any of the service was allowed. I then went to the main door to wait with Gerry Turner, for the arrival of the Royal Party.

We stood and waited opposite a large group of accredited press photographers which included Sybille. There were quite a large number of people gathered to watch on the far side of the street and many locals looking out on proceedings from the windows of the surrounding apartment buildings.

Right on time at 11am, preceded by numerous police cars all with blue lights flashing, the Royal Party arrived. The accompanying photographs taken by Sybille, illustrate the event far better than my written words.

Elise, better known as 'Pixel' with her posy of daffodils for the Duchess, together with Mom Susanne, Dad Mark and Gerry Turner © Sybille Yates

Me greeting Prince Charles whilst the Duchess and Gerry Turner look on © Sybille Yates

The Duchess of Cornwall with her flower posy, together with the Prince of Wales, walk towards the Church entrance watched by Peter Morpuss, Church Council member and welcomer for the special occasion, together Pixel's parents and Gerry Turner © Sybille Yates

Amanda Neill, the second welcomer on this special day, looks on as the Prince, the Duchess and the British Ambassador approach the Church door © Sybille Yates

Once I had escorted the Royal Party to their pew, the service started and, I am very pleased to say, ran remarkably smoothly. But more of that in my next blog post…….

Only 12 hours to go…..

Brass Plaque on Church Door © Ricky Yates

By the time I publish this blog post, there will be little more than 12 hours to go before their Royal Highnesses, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, arrive outside St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, to be greeted by me and the Churchwardens and then join us for worship. Judging by the comments I’ve received on my previous posts, there seems to be many readers enjoying my regular updates. So here is one final update in advance of the big day.

As I mentioned previously, I had yet another meeting in the late afternoon of Thursday 18th March with various security personnel, both British and Czech, seeking to ascertain what would happen when the official party arrives, who would sit where and how the service would proceed. Hopefully, we’ve now got everything sorted.

Yesterday afternoon, I finally completed printing, folding and stapling 100 copies of a special Order of Service for the day.  I’ve been through it several times with my proofreader’s eye, which I still have from previous career in publishing, so hopefully it contains no glaring errors or omissions.

This morning, I completed compiling my sermon, trying to give an exposition of the Biblical Readings in a similar manner that I would without British royalty being present. Yet as I wrote, I always seemed to have in the back of my mind the thought, ‘…what would the Prince and the Duchess think if I said that?’ Of course, what I should have been thinking was not that the future King of the United Kingdom would be present, but rather that the King of Kings will be present!

This afternoon, I took the tram in the centre of Prague in order to take a variety of things, including the Orders of Service, to the Church so I have far fewer things to worry about tomorrow morning. It was very clear that the Prague city authorities had been busy. All around the Church the pavements had been swept. Likewise, the gutters and road surface had also been cleaned and the recycling bins completely removed.

No Parking on Sunday 21st March 2010 © Ricky Yates

As I mentioned in the previous post, even last Sunday there were already signs erected forbidding anyone to leave a parked car in the vicinity of the Church between 08.00 – 13.00 tomorrow. This afternoon I noticed that many local residents had already heeded the warning and removed their vehicles to a safer place. Those that fail to do so will discover that their cars have been physically lifted onto the back of a truck and removed to a secure compound and their owners will be considerably lighter in pocket after reclaiming them!

So hopefully, all is now ready – or at least as ready as it is ever going to be! And after all the cold and snow, even the weather has improved with temperatures in the mid-teens Celsius. However, the forecast is that we might have a few light rain showers tomorrow. I just hope and pray that they hold off until after the service is over and the Royal couple are on their way to their next engagement.

Three days to go……..

St. Vitus Cathedral & Prague Castle © Ricky Yates

Yes – it is only three days to go before Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, arrive outside St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, ready to join the regular congregation for Sunday Morning worship. So I thought my blog readers might appreciate an update as to how preparations for the big day are going.

Liturgy – Earlier yesterday, I finally finished drafting and typing the Order of Service that we will use on Sunday. Normally at St. Clements, everybody gets an Order of Service containing the liturgy, a hymn book, together with a copy of our Weekly Bulletin which contains the text of the Collect and Bible Readings, the notices for the coming week and contact details for me and members of the Church Council.

For this special service, I always planned that we would produce a single booklet containing not only the liturgy, but also the words of the hymns and Bible Readings, together with the weekly notices. The idea was that this would be something people could take away with them as a memento of this special occasion.

Putting something like this all together, always takes far longer than you originally think it will.  And having to make considerable changes late last Thursday hasn’t helped the cause. But hopefully now, the master copy currently sitting on my desk, will be passing through my little photocopier in the next couple of days, producing for each booklet, five A4 pieces of paper printed on both sides, which when folded and stapled, will create a 20 page A5 booklet.

Security – This seems to be becoming the ever increasing nightmare with regard to the Prince and the Duchess attending Sunday worship at St. Clements. Later today, I have yet another meeting at the Church with both Czech & British security personnel.  Last Sunday, there were already signs erected all around the Church, saying parking would be prohibited between 8am and 1pm on Sunday 21st March. I gather that even the very convenient recycling bins that are on the street alongside the Church, are to be removed.

All I do hope is that over zealous Czech police do not prevent members of the regular congregation gaining access to the Church on Sunday. The Church service was always envisaged as a semi-private event as far as the British Embassy was concerned. However, the protocol office of the Czech President and the Czech police seem to think differently!

Visitors – One of the most amazing things about this Royal Visit is the number of friends and relatives of regular members of the congregation, who suddenly want to come to Church! Yes – please forgive my little dose of cynicism, but it is a case of ‘to see and be seen’. Of course they are welcome to come though, for security reasons, I’ve said that they do need to come with a regular member who can vouch for who they are. But I do hope that this visit will raise the profile of the Church and bring us into far better contact with the wider English-speaking expat community here in Prague.

The Press – Today I was interviewed by Tomáš Kutil, a journalist from Katolický týdeník, (Catholic Weekly), the foremost Roman Catholic newspaper in the Czech Republic. He wanted to know my thoughts about this forthcoming Royal Visit as well as to know more about the Anglican Church. It will be interesting to see what appears in next week’s edition when it is published on Tuesday 23rd March.

But whilst there is considerable press interest about the Royal Visit to the Czech Republic, I am very disappointed with the attitude of the BBC. I do not have a television so I keep up-to-date with what is going on in the world by regularly visiting the BBC News website. So far, there has been absolutely no coverage whatsoever of the Royal Visit to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic on the BBC News website. The Royal Couple are now in Hungary having spent the past three days in Poland.

The British media who are covering the trip in detail, are ‘The Daily Telegraph’, frequently known as ‘The Torygraph’, and the ’Daily Mail’, the newspaper produced for all those unable to think for themselves! The BBC is often accused by Conservative Party politicians, of being left-wing rather than unbiased as it is meant to be. By ignoring this three country official visit by Their Royal Highnesses, and leaving coverage to the right-wing press, the BBC are giving further ammunition to all those who would want to damage and dismantle it.

My Accredited Photographer wife – Talking about press coverage reminds me to say that, for the first time ever, Sybille has become an accredited Press Photographer. She has been granted accreditation to cover the arrival of the Prince and Duchess outside St Clement’s Church. We are off to the British Embassy today to pick up the official documentation.

The idea is that the photos she takes can be reproduced in our Diocesan Magazine, ‘The European Anglican’ and also appear on the Diocesan website, as well as on www.anglican.cz . I may even be allowed to post one or two on this blog!

Sermon – What are you going to preach about? This is a question that has been asked of me several times in recent days. Looking at the Biblical readings set by the lectionary for this Sunday, one verse continues to resonate with me. It is the words of St. Paul when he says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings” – Philippians 3 v10. The joy of resurrection but, before that, suffering. Very significant words to ponder as we enter Passiontide, Holy Week and Easter.

Opening my mouth too soon!

My Renault Scenic in the snow, Saturday 6th March 2010 © Ricky Yates

On Monday 1st March I published a blog post entitled ‘Finally, the snow has melted’ describing how, after seven weeks, the snowfall that started in Prague on Friday 8th January, had all but disappeared. I’m afraid I spoke to soon.

I took this picture yesterday morning, Saturday 6th March, which shows my car parked outside the block of flats where we live. It had started snowing during the night and did not cease until early in the afternoon. Since then, the sky has cleared with a temperature of -10 Celsius being recorded at 6am this morning.  Winter isn’t over yet!

A forthcoming Royal Visit

St. Clement's Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague © Ricky Yates

This is a blog post that I started formulating almost two months ago. But for reasons that will be obvious as you read on further, it was only 48 hours ago that I was allowed to speak or write publicly about most of what follows.

The story starts on the morning of Monday 11th January 2010 when I received an email from the British Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Sian MacLeod, alerting me to ‘a visit next weekend by an official group from the UK who would very much like to visit your church’. Her colleague, the Second Secretary Alex Pykett would be in touch with me shortly to make arrangements and she expressed the hope that I would be able to help. I duly replied that I would help in whatever way I could.

A couple of days later, I had a phone call from the Second Secretary. Please could he and the ‘official group from the UK’, meet me at the Church on Saturday 16th January at 2 pm. When I enquired whether this was security related he agreed that it was and that he would be able to tell me more when we met.

Putting two and two together, I realised that what was mind must be some form of Royal Visit. What I did not yet know was who the visitors were to be. Was it to be Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh or HRH Prince Charles and HRH Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall? To save the mouthfuls, over the next few days Sybille and I reduced this to either E & P or C & C!

On Saturday 16th January, I travelled into central Prague from the Chaplaincy flat, opened the Church and awaited the arrival of the official party. Just before 2 pm, a car drew up and parked nearby. The driver came across to me and introduced himself. He was an officer of the Czech Secret Service, sent by the Office of the Czech President to meet with the ‘official group from the UK’ to discuss the proposed visit of Prince Charles + Camilla. So it was to be C & C.

Soon afterwards, a minibus pulled up and out stepped the ‘official group from the UK’, led by Alex Pykett the Second Secretary. There were nine or ten people in total and I never got to know who all of them were. Those I did speak with were the Princes’ Private Secretary, his Personal Protection Officer and his Press Secretary, together with the Duchess’ Lady-in-Waiting. We discussed in detail what normally happens at our regular 11am service each Sunday and the special arrangements to be made to allow the Prince and the Duchess to attend and worship with us.

The real shock came when I asked about the date of the proposed visit. I had assumed such visits would be organised several months in advance and presumed we would be talking about September or October 2010. You can therefore imagine my surprise when the reply came that, whilst the exact date had not finally been agreed, it would either be Sunday 14th or Sunday 21st March.

The great emphasis throughout all of our discussions was that the proposed visit had to be kept very hush-hush. This was partly due to the exact dates and arrangements still being sorted out. But sadly, the overriding concern was that of security. By not announcing details of the proposed visit until a few weeks before it is planned to take place, any terrorist would have far less time to organise something. I therefore concluded that at least some of the members of the visiting group who I did not really speak with, were officers of MI5, sussing out all the security implications of such a Royal Visit.

Despite the need for secrecy, I did share the basic details with the Church Council when they met the following day. For depending which Sunday the visit was to take place, it could have had implications regarding other Church activities. But nothing could be made public to the wider congregation until I had the say-so from the British Embassy.

On Friday 5th February, I had a second meeting at Church with Alex Pykett and his diplomatic colleague John Davies. As well as clarifying various practical details regarding the Church service, it was confirmed to me that the date would be Sunday 21st March. I was also told that this was all part of a three country tour with the Prince and the Duchess visiting Poland and Hungary, before arriving in the Czech Republic. The royal couple would be arriving from Budapest the previous day.

I was also promised that towards the end of the following week, there would be an official announcement by the British Embassy about the visit. However, this would still be in very general terms and not including a detailed programme of events. In the meantime it was still very hush-hush – please don’t tell anyone.

It was therefore quite a surprise when the following morning, one of the Churchwardens phoned me saying, “I see the news of the visit is out”. He sent me a link to an article on the website of the Czech newspaper Dnes (Today) with news of the forthcoming royal visit. I soon found an English-language piece on the website of the Czech News Agency CTK. Both articles credited the source of their information as being ‘unnamed diplomatic sources’.  I was later informed that the source of the leak to was believed to have been in Hungary!

Finally, late on Thursday 11th February, the promised official announcement was posted on the British Embassy website and a similar press release was made by Clarence House in London. But again, mainly because of security concerns, there was still no detailed programme nor could I yet tell the regular members of the congregation that, as part of the impending royal visit, the Prince and the Duchess would be attending Sunday worship at St. Clements.

On Wednesday 3rd March at 8.30am, I had my third meeting at the Church, this time with the Director of Protocol of the Office of the Czech President, together with several senior officers of the Czech Police. Once more, Alex Pykett was there and helped finalise the necessary security arrangements.

However, the really good news last Wednesday was that later that day, there would be an announcement of the programme for the Royal Visit on the British Embassy website which would in turn give me the green light to tell all the members of the congregation and also be able to publish this blog post!

I have to say that I feel a certain sense of relief that I am finally free to talk openly about the forthcoming Royal Visit. It has occupied quite a bit of my time over these past two months. On quite a number of recent occasions I have had to bite my lip and refrain from saying something in order to maintain the requested secrecy. It hasn’t been easy.

I am also quite encouraged that attending Christian worship is seen as an important ingredient of the visit by the royal couple to the Czech Republic. This is in notable contrast to the visit of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to Prague in 2009. Instead of attending a Church service, President Obama made his major European speech about promoting a nuclear-free world, standing alongside Prague Castle, but on the morning of Palm Sunday!

St. Clement's Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague © Ricky Yates