Brave Edwina bows out as Marlborough’s magnificent diamond jubilee mayor

There will be no red wig after all for Edwina Fogg, when she bows out on Monday from her whirlwind year as Marlborough’s elegant royal diamond jubilee mayor.

And the town council’s annual mayor-making meeting will be an unusual affair for 71-year-old Edwina since she has stepped down as a town councillor following her bombshell diagnosis of cancer two months ago.

“It will be a strange even for me because it is so rare for someone not to be continuing their life on the council after their year as mayor,” Edwina told Marlborough News Online.  “I shall have to do my speech, thank everyone, make some presentations before the main agenda is reached because I am no longer a councillor.”

And as she has been losing her hair as a result of chemotherapy for a treatable form of cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she will be wearing a wig.

“I said I would go for a red wig but I’m not bold enough to do that,” said Edwina, who retains the indefatigable enthusiasm she has shown carrying out a kaleidoscopic calendar of proud and colourful events during the year.

“I was blonde with highlights originally.  I’ve now got a wig that’s a mixture, slightly darker than usual, and I’ve chosen one that’s fashionably short.

“When my hair grows back I gather it sometimes grows back curly.  So I shall be wearing scarves for quite some time.  I like my hair short now and I am going to keep it that way.”

And Edwina will still be very much in the political loop since her husband, Nick Fogg, twice mayor of Marlborough, remains a Wiltshire and town councillor, and they also have six children and an army of grandchildren to enjoy.

She refuses to pick out any one highlight from her mayoral year, which also embraced the Olympics with 8,000 people crowding the High Street’s pavements to see the golden torch pass through en route to London.

The visit of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to unveil Marlborough’s permanent memorial to the Queen’s diamond jubilee was another cheering event plus the arrival from Marlborough, New Zealand, of the replica oar used in the Queen’s pageant on the Thames.

A magnificent Remembrance Day ceremony added to her programme that brought a parade of soldiers from the 4Military Intelligence Battalion that served in Afghanistan marching through the town.

“It was everything we wanted it to be, partly because we took over the organisation of the wreath laying,” she recalled.  “Everything ran to precision, the clock chiming 11am just as I was laying the wreath.

“And that was thanks to David Sherratt, Marlborough’s ceremonial officer, who was responsible for arranging it all and so many other events that maintain Marlborough’s international and local links.

“David said to me that sometimes mayors get low just before Christmas because the year has been so hectic.  But I never felt that. I just enjoyed everything tremendously.

We had some fantastic events and quite an amazing time.  I achieved so much of what I wanted to do.”