Titanium Jen tackles the BIG PARLIAMENT TOUR.

Titanium Jen tackles the BIG PARLIAMENT TOUR.

So, I depart my underground train at Waterloo station, frantically messaging the other Young Ambassadors in excitement to meet outside the ‘Pret’ building and make our way over to Parliament Square. Today was the day a group of Young Ambassadors and key members of the Policy Team from The Brain Tumour Charity would be taking a tour inside our Houses of Parliament to better learn the process and history behind the big decisions which are made, affecting our futures in terms of research and funding allocation.

            Firstly, was the security check, big body scanners, which my titanium plate set off as usual… this was slightly more daunting at a highly secure government building secured by armed police. I blurted out ‘I have a plate’ and pointed to my head, much to the security guard’s amusement and with their final checks I hurried along and secured my visitors pass ready to start my tour.

            We entered into a grand hall where we met our guide, a small older lady who was a well of useful information. We had a small briefing on what to expect through our day and we were introduced to the history of the building, explaining the vast differences in ages of separate areas of our parliamentary building.

            We made our way along to the tour, with each room we reached learning more important facts about my countries democratic process’ and how they came to be. Eventually we reached the royal section of the parliamentary building where we were told the stories of Queen Victoria and then the ritual of ‘Black Rod’ – the man in tights, and the opening of parliament were explained to us.

We were all fascinated with the level of sophisticated carvings and paintings that hung around us and dressed the walls of our parliamentary building. The next room we were whisked off into was the Queen’s robing room for the opening of parliament. The robing room was large with a throne central on the back wall, with big portraits hanging either side and you could just envisage the setup of this room on the state opening of parliament day. Well almost, three of us at the same time, did question why The Queen did not have any mirrors in her robing room? Our guide soon informed us that she’d been luckily enough to see that they do in fact, add mirrors to this room especially for Her Majesty’s visits.

            Next we followed The Queen’s pathway down to the House of Lords, it was simply a room full of red benches, with a speaker’s seat carefully placed in the middle and fully kitted out with microphones and video cameras. That was until we turned to face the throne. The throne was golden, and surrounded by two smaller chairs, both in gold with coats of arms above them and beautifully carved décor surrounded. This end of the room was a beautiful contrast to the dull looking interior of the deep red benches ‘which we could not sit on’.

            We followed from here onto a small holding room where we learnt about the voting process for MP’s, crucial information for us as Young Ambassadors to understand when a law gets dismissed or passed, in terms of reasoning for this and how this came to be. We also got to view, in its glass cabinet, a diary of everything that had happened in parliament, opened onto the day after Guy Fawkes was found in the basement with several barrels of gunpowder.

            Finally, we headed on down to the House of Commons, we learnt all about appropriate parliamentary language (which I didn’t break once, much to my surprise) and the process of gaining the speakers attention and debating on important issues. We even discussed some controversial debates which had happened in our lifetimes. We learnt the purpose of those big red lines which you can often notice when watching PMQ’s over your lunch… Here’s a hint ‘they’re exactly two sword lengths and a few inches apart.’

The last room of the tour we reached had statues of Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and many other great leaders around a circular room. We had a short summary about areas of the building which were destroyed at different eras, including the bombing of parliament in WW2 which Winston Churchill commissioned an almost identical rebuild of.

I know I may have skimmed some details and missed part of the day out here, but I’m writing to tell you all about how we’ve had a truly amazing experience and been informed of the democratic process which happens EVERY DAY inside our parliamentary buildings at Westminster to help us reach our goal in halving the harm and doubling the survival from brain tumours. As a group of Young Adults, we can now confidently answer questions regarding the process of how levels of funding were allocated to brain tumour research following the tragic loss of Dame Tessa Jowell and how politics and our passion can work together to make an overall better picture for those patients, who face an uncertain future.

Thank you for coming back to read another blog guys! Your support is so appreciated, keep the awareness going and please help me on my personal mission to make stories like mine a thing of the past. – Lots of Love, Jen. xx