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Invitation to a Prince

Find the now famous line in one of Authorsonline publications: ……. ‘I can honestly say I have shaken the hand of a Prince’.

Which book on this website says this? Who wrote it? How did it help book sales?

Annette Willoughby, author and after dinner speaker, has made this sentence work for her.

Prince Seeiso & Princess Mabereng watching the performances at Gamlingay Community College

Annette Willoughby watches the performance from the wings (well nearer centre stage actually!)

Annette enjoys a joke with The Prince (Must be about the hat Nettie!)

Annette and the Head Boy and Head Girl of GCC giving their thank you speechs in 'Lesotho'!

While ‘praying for the rain’ at a Church Festival in the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, Annette remembers shaking hands with His Royal Highness Prince Seeiso Bereng Seeiso, the most eligible batchelor in the land. His mother, the late Queen Mamohato, was at that time desperate to see her sons married off and getting on with the job of producing sons. King Letsie lll, the Prince’s brother was also unmarried. Mothers worry about these things.

Several years after their initial meeting, the now author of two books, met the Prince again. For HRH, she was not even a distant memory….despite the fact that she has campaigned for the people of his Kingdom for eight years without stopping for breath.

Fast forward eight years to an office in Belgravia… as a copy of ‘Born Singing’ lands on the The High Commissioner’s desk, reminding HRH of that first meeting with an English lady. (Page 119 – if you’ve been listening)  Prince Seeiso has just returned from a trip to Lesotho and a story about a link with one of the poorest mountain villages in his country, catches his attention. He reads it….and decides to meet the lady behind the book.

Annette accepted the invitation to meet HRH at his official residence in London in June this year. She asked him if he would become the Patron of her new Charity (in waiting) called Linking Lives.

Born in Bedfordshire, Linking Lives has its heart in a small mountain village called Ha Simone in the Lowlands of Lesotho where, children who wouldn’t have stood a chance of an education before, now go to school. Funding from UK has brought the Community fresh water, electricity and toilets – and a new pre-school is on the drawing board. Communication with the village is a problem, but they manage – that old- fashioned occupation called ‘letter writing’ is the key.

In the new Linking Lives leaflet, Annette uses the description written by a child visiting Lesotho last year – ‘if you think you are too small to be effective then you have never been to bed with a mosquito’  Now the Chairman of ‘Linking Lives’ one of her aims it to encourage people to make a ‘mosquito sized contribution to one child, one family, one village.’ It works. It’s rewarding, it’s useful and it’s real.

If you want to increase your sales – go Royal!

Prince Seeiso and his wife the Princess Mabereng were guests at a Musical Evening in Gamlingay last Saturday, when the children of the Gamlingay Village College choir and other soloists sang. The school was bursting at the seams, children’s voices rang out and Prince Seeiso turned Prince Charming was there to host the evening. If ever there was an occasion to celebrate a book this was it.

For more details, email Annette on linkinglives@hotmail.co.uk.

Try your hand at writing a letter to a family in Africa who will appreciate a pair of warm socks as much as you appreciate your favourite tipple. Contributions welcome. Membership to Linking Lives costs £10 a year and is open to anyone.

Try reading ‘Innocent in Africa’ to put you in the picture, try reading ‘Born Singing’ to live the story.

Networking works! Don’t sit there and wish you could do it.! Get started!