Melvin : Yes there is but you don ’ t get to see the Queen . But , there was a formal investiture . It was performed by the Lord Lieutenant of West Sussex who is the official representative of the Queen in the county ; it ’ s a sort of formally organised procedure . I thought you would actually have an investiture where everybody was there . But no , each investiture is organised specifically for you and how you want it and where you want it . It was finally arranged in February of this year you can ’ t have the investiture until the medal has arrived and the medals were very late , they took 6 months to come through but she invested me with it and it ’ s on behalf of the Queen . It ’ s a very honourable thing and don ’ t underrate it because there ’ s only about 1,100 each half year who get awards in this country . 99 % of them are rejected that are applied for and it ’ s a rare chance they are given to ordinary people like me , not the famous sports people . The press gives the headlines to the sports people , the politicians , the whatever , but the majority go to local do-gooders in the community . The higher you go the more you ’ re likely to get a formal investiture at the Palace , not necessarily by the Queen but by a representative . It flowed on from that that you get invitations to the Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace which we went to in May . It ’ s an experience , there are 7,000 to 8,000 people there , but it ’ s the fact you ’ re in Buckingham Palace , it ’ s a great honour to go in there . It ’ s an amazing place . You can go on public visits but this is where it ’ s all laid out and the Queen and all the Royal Family come down , you don ’ t actually meet them , they meet certain people who are nominated to be met but you ’ re still there and you watch them and my daughter who went with me , she was yards away from the Queen and took a picture of the Queen just with nobody around her , quite interesting . And you get afternoon tea . Nice , nice tea and the fact is that you walk out through the front of Buckingham Palace through the gates ; you know it ’ s quite something , all these tourists wonder what the hell ’ s going on !
Amber : What other great experiences have you had through doing your community work ?
Melvin : Well the Christmas lights I would say overall has been the best thing because for 34 years we produced a Christmas lights display that everybody loved in the town . We did wind it down the last few years but when it was at its height no other towns had the type of lights we had , we had a huge area covered and we were always getting compliments for it . One of the fundraising things that I did was I ran a bar at the local Council ’ s function hall since 1986 , raising funds for it and in latter years , the last 10 years , every bar that was held in this hall had to be run by me so there was not many weekends during the year when I wasn ’ t running the bar , so my whole life revolved round it ; it was very enjoyable but the Christmas lights and the joy it brings to the children was really the greatest thing I think . It doesn ’ t degrade being Town Mayor . That ’ s something which is a token ; you ’ re not the Town Mayor because of who you are . You ’ re representing the Council but it was an honour to do it . If I look at it overall the Christmas lights were the greatest thing because it went on for such a long period of time and I love Christmas , if you saw my house it ’ s completely covered , some would say very tacky but the whole house is covered with lights , I ’ m the first one who did it . Everybody loves it , I ’ m opposite the school and they all come down to the school to look at them .
Amber : Do you feel like now you ’ re taking a step back from the community work you may get itchy feet and want to get more involved again ?
Melvin : No way . I ’ ve been there , done it , and worn the t-shirt . It ’ s never the same the second time round . There ’ s a danger of when you ’ ve been Town Mayor or you ’ ve been the Chairman of a committee and you become a semigovernor , a backbencher , there ’ s always the risk that I wouldn ’ t have done it that way or whatever , and that can be counterproductive . I started off the East Grinstead in Bloom Committee which is still running but I came off it straightaway because it ’ d always be tempting to say to the Chairman well I think you should do it this way and always trying to interfere ; you ’ ve got to let other people do it .
Amber : So outside of work and your community work , what are your hobbies and interests ?
Melvin : I have an interest in heritage , aeroplanes and trains . Anything transport . I work at Brooklands Museum in Weybridge which is a World Heritage site , the site of the first racing circuit in this country , it ’ s a bank circuit , it ’ s partly the home of Concorde , and I work for London Buses which has the biggest collection of London working buses in Europe . I ’ m not a steam buff , I just like to see things that work and for years I supported the Vulcan Bomber back to flight , which was a massive project , not because I ’ m an aircraft buff but I like to see things that work compared to a museum so I ’ m interested in all those sort of things , but only as a periphery , I ’ m not directly involved in it apart from working at Brooklands which is simply as a steward to explain things to visitors , which I do once a month .
Amber : Is there anything else you ’ d like to say about your community work ?
Melvin : I think it ’ s important for people to be involved in the community but there ’ s less and less people doing it now , and whilst you can get people involved in charitable fundraising , that ’ s not the answer because a lot of local things are not charities . For instance , local organisations like The Lions , they do raise money for charity but do a lot of other work as well . Everybody ’ s having difficulty in finding people to do things . There ’ s definitely more of that community feel within East Grinstead , and the smaller villages compared to say Brighton . I think the local communities have Parish Councils where everyone knows a lot of people , that still happens here . There ’ s 27,000 or more population , but it is difficult , they are really short of volunteers in so many groups , you see the same people still in , there are people in The Lions that I knew when I was Mayor 27 years ago .
Amber : What was it really like being Mayor ? What kind of things did you have to do ?
Melvin : Being a Mayor of a Town Council is like a Parish Council so it ’ s not like being the Mayor of Brighton or Crawley which is quite different cos they ’ re boroughs . You get invited to all sorts of functions because people want the Mayor to go along as a sort of figurehead or to give awards or whatever and I think I did about 130 functions during the year , but now the Mayor of East Grinstead will do nearly 300 , it ’ s a massive commitment . You have to wear the chain of office and because East Grinstead used to have its own Council at one stage it inherited the old chain of office which is now in the Town Council ’ s vault . Because of the demise of local press , most people don ’ t know what the Mayor gets up to because when I was the Mayor every week I was in the paper . Now we have no real local paper . We have a free sheet which is disappearing down the plughole , it ’ s so thin now .
Amber : So you ’ ve spent most of your time in East Grinstead , if there was anywhere else in the world you could live where would it be ?
Melvin : Anywhere by the seaside . I love the sea . I find it relaxing . I go to the Isle of Wight a lot which is a really lovely place in season .
Amber : Sounds good . Thanks for your time Melvin .
By Amber Ainsworth and Lara Cusack
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