Brits celebrate queen’s birthday

Consul General Kate Rudd said the consulate had had a very busy year culminating in the extraordinary local fallout from Iceland’s erupting volcano, where thousands of European Muslims were stranded for days.
“Who would have thought that a volcano in Iceland, a country far north of the UK, could prevent over 2,000 British nationals in Jeddah, who had just completed Umrah, from returning home?” she said while thanking Saudi Arabian Airlines, the General Authority of Civil Aviation and officials from Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport “for their tremendous assistance during this testing time.”
Rudd highlighted the visit of the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, who represented Queen Elizabeth II at the opening of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology on Saudi National Day in September. She also reflected on the consular operation during Haj 200 assisting over 23,000 British nationals who came to the Kingdom. In the past year, she said, the Jeddah Consulate General had hosted 17 trade missions, including one led by UK Minister for Trade Lord Davies, and through these introduced over 250 UK companies to the Hejaz.
Roddy Drummond, chargé d’affaires since the recent departure of the UK Ambassador Sir William Patey to Afghanistan, paid tribute to the consular staff and its work in assisting the many hundreds of pilgrims stranded at Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport as a result of the shutdown of Europe airspace.
He said that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had sent his own thanks to Rudd and other staff for their help in getting the pilgrims home.
“The 2,000 British Umrah pilgrims faced special problems,” he said, “But staff from Riyadh and Alkhobar were able to reinforce the Jeddah team, deploy to Makkah and Madinah, and were able to provide a lot of advice and assistance at Jeddah and Riyadh airports over several days until everyone was back home.”
Although the Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday is on April 21, the sovereign’s birthday — the closest the UK has to a national day — has long been officially celebrated on a Saturday in June, being a time when good weather is more likely.