My Year as Mayor of Wirral 2005-2006 by Councillor Chris Meaden
Firstly may I say a big thank you to the Councillors of Wirral who gave me the opportunity to be the first citizen of Wirral for the year 2005-2006.
What a year for my husband Eddy and myself! So many memories.
I have met Royalty, Paul O’Grady, Wayne Rooney, Duncan Ferguson, all the players from Tranmere Rovers and the lovely people in Wirral and, of course, the children from all the schools that I visited.
There were two key aims in my year as Mayor. One was to raise money for Claire House Hospice. The other was to concentrate on the theme I chose for the year, which was “The children are our future.”
Through the generosity of the people of Wirral, and with the help of my Charity Committee, I raised a staggering £60,000 and there is still money coming in, so may I say a big thank you to everybody who contributed in helping me raise this amount.
I also set out to visit some of the schools in Wirral and I managed to visit over 120 all across the Borough. To the delight of everybody in the Town Hall, I invited most of their schools councils back to my Parlour for tea with the Mayor, which I hope they all thoroughly enjoyed.
So where do you start explaining some of the things that the Mayor gets up to ? Let’s try.
My highlights of the year range from going to the Garden Party in London for tea with the Queen, climbing the wall at Wallasey Fire Station, opening new businesses, climbing to the top of The Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, watching the start of the Clipper Race and meeting James Cracknell, spending the day with Duke of Westminster when he gave out medals to all of the Royal Engineers from the T A who had served in Iraq and of course meeting all the wonderful volunteers who work so hard.
I also watched our gifted and talented youngsters who work at The Youth Theatre in Wirral and our musical youth who sing and play in our youth orchestra. I have presented so many awards to so many people, from youngsters with special achievements to members of our volunteer groups. I had the pleasure of meeting Prince Edward when he came to South Wirral High School and also Cherie Blair when she came to open the Joseph Paxton Centre.
I have also met all our wonderful veterans during the 60 year celebrations - so many heroes and such amazing stories.
I have been asked what the highlight of my year was and, to be honest, I do not think I could single out just one thing. I was very proud to be “The First Citizen of Wirral” for the year and I will remember it for a long time to come. I just keep thinking that if somebody had told me when I was growing up in the North end of Birkenhead that “you will be Mayor of Wirral one day” I would have laughed and said “no way”. It just goes to prove that anyone can achieve anything if they really want to.
I feel very proud and privileged to come from The Wirral and, in my book, it is a wonderful place to live.
So thank you once again to Wirral Councillors for giving me the opportunity and thank you to the people of Wirral for all the kindness and generosity shown to Eddy and myself during the year. I hope the experience of this year’s Mayor is as rewarding and enjoyable as mine was.
Christine Meaden
