By Royal Appointment - 25 April 2009

To celebrate 85 years of the MG marque, the Windsor Rotary Club and several MG clubs organised the Royal Windsor MG Heritage Festival as fundraiser for The Prince Philip Trust Fund and other Rotary charities.

The aim was to get a representative of every MG model from 1924 to 2009, the very newest 85th Anniversary Edition TF, which was unveiled to the public at the display. The earliest models that made it were two from 1925, one of which had spent most of its life in NZ. It was a fantastic turnout of some extremely beautiful examples of the MG Marque down through the years and we were chosen to represent 1950 and the YA model.

To get 221 cars assembled and into the right order after the requisite security checks meant that it was a farily early start to the day. We were car number 77 in the parade as we made our way though the crowds in Windsor and then enjoyed the rare privilege of driving up Castle Hill and through St George's Gate into the private area of the Castle. We then drove around the Royal Quadrangle where HRH gave us a wave and then out of the castle and through the private grounds into Frogmore Drive and down to a parking area by the cricket grounds.

Once we were all assembled there HRH drove himself down in his Range Rover and planted a tree, as did Mr He Xiaoqing the Chairman of MG Motors UK. Mr He then presented HRH with the keys to a brand new MG TF LE500 to be auctioned as part of the fundraising. With the formal bits over, the public were allowed in to look at the cars and we were allowed out so went for a walk down the long drive to see the other 600+ MGs that had assembled there to be part of the day.


Just around the corner from Windsor is The Valley Gardens, which have an extensive area of Azaleas and Rhododendrons and they were in absolutely glorious form. We thus enjoyed a beautiful walk through the gardens, especially the Punch Bowl area that was a blaze of colour.