Special invitation for Junior String Quartet

QE’s Junior String Quartet have given a special performance at the opening ceremony of an extension to a local care home, by special invitation of its trustees.

Year 9 violinists Simon Purdy, Daniel Cheung and Jason Yau, together with Akhil Shah on cello, performed for residents and guests at the official opening of eight new cottages at The Thomas Watson Cottage Homes Care Home in High Barnet. The chairman of the charity, Mrs Jenny Harrold, said: “We wanted to invite the quartet from Queen Elizabeth’s School as quite a few of our residents attend their Christmas concert each year and thoroughly enjoy it. We thought it would add to the sense of occasion.”

Mrs Harrold and fellow trustees Mrs Sarah Campling and Mrs Sarah Housden are descendants of Thomas Watson and his daughters Annie and Florence, who set aside the land and paid for the building of the original 11 bungalows and hall in 1914. The new cottages are to be known as Jubilee Cottages in recognition of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

A plaque was unveiled by Mrs Harrold in the presence of 120 guests. Mrs Campling and Mrs Housden then officially pronounced the cottages open by untying the ribbons attached to the two brick plinths erected outside of the two sets of cottages.  The trustees were accompanied by Mrs Florence Jones and Mrs Linda McCarthy, the resident who has been there longest and the newest resident respectively.