Basseterre, St. Kitts, September 15, 2022 (SKNIS): Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Right Honourable Dr. Denzil Douglas will represent the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis at the State Funeral of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II which is slated for Monday, September 19, 2022, at Westminster Abbey in London.
In an interview with the St. Kitts and Nevis Information Service (SKNIS) on Wednesday, September 14, 2022, the Right Honourable Dr. Denzil Douglas said he was indeed honoured to represent the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
“I consider it an honour and a privilege to be asked by our Prime Minister (the Honourable Dr. Terrance Drew) to represent our Federation at the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. I consider it an honour because normally, we would have had His Excellency Governor-General (Sir S. W. Tapley Seaton), who is Her Majesty’s representative here in St. Kitts and Nevis and the Prime Minister [represent us],” said the Right Honourable Dr. Douglas. “But it is our Independence celebration here in St. Kitts and Nevis, the very same day that Her Majesty’s remains would be interred. That is the day when we are celebrating our Independence and so I consider it a signal honour and privilege to be asked to represent us at this time,” Dr. Douglas added.
The Right Honourable Dr. Douglas recalled many fond memories with Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
“As a little boy back in the 60’s when I was in Grammar School, she visited and I had the opportunity of course, at the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla Grammar School to have met her, seeing her physically for the first time. And then having been elected as the Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis back in 1995, I had the distinct honour of having lunch with her in New Zealand at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference at that particular time,” said Dr. Douglas. “And then at her Jubilee Celebration, again I had the privilege of sitting with her as we celebrated that memorial occasion. I again, being the longest serving prime minister in the Commonwealth at that time, had the privilege of lunching with her there in London.
In 2011, Dr. Douglas was appointed to Her Majesty’s Privy Council when the prefix ‘Right Honourable’ was added to his name. The Privy Council (PC), officially His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom.
“Again, of course, it was Her Majesty who gave me the honour of using the Right Honourable in the sense that I became one of her Privy Counselors and had to travel back to London in 2014, and was inducted into that particular body of representatives of Her Majesty Privy Council. So those are some of the fond and private memories that I have which I shall always have,” said the Right Honourable Dr. Denzil Douglas. “What it does really is that for example, on her passing I was one of those whom the Palace contacted in order to help in the process of determining her successor…”
Her Late Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, died on September 08, 2022, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, ending her reign of 70 years. She was 96. The funeral service is scheduled for 6 a.m. St. Kitts and Nevis time’. Her Late Majesty will be buried in her beloved Windsor, in the King George VI Memorial Chapel.
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