The high honour is bestowed upon the Festival [King’s Lyon Festival] year by year through the presence of the Queen Mother to whom Ruth Fermoy is Lady-in-Waiting. Her majesty is Patron of the Festival and attends many of the events that take place during the annual week, and has never missed a Festival since the first one in 1951. The performance of Flos Campi on 1 August 1958 was attended by the Queen Mother, who came up to me afterwards when I was in the audience listening to the remainder of the programme and, to my surprise and delight, told me how moved she had been by this beautiful work. It is indeed an extraordinarily fine composition, and the last page particularly contains some of the most lovely music that ever flowed from the pen of R.V.W [Ralph Vaughan Williams]. << less