Richard Williams has been an ERA councillor since 2019. He was reelected in 2023 and became Mayor of Elmbridge in May of that year. He talks to us about his Mayoral year.

“I was parachuted into being Mayor as the late Charu Sood was, very sadly, unable to take up the role. She was a brilliant, energetic and committed councillor and I was proud to stand in for her.

The Mayor is the public face of Elmbridge and its Council. If you ever take a look at Next Door, Facebook or Twitter, you’d believe the Council gets nothing right – and that’s being pretty generous. Yet, when my wife, Agnieszka, and I were out and about, the reception from the public was always delightful.

Our experience was that the Mayoralty really does bring people together. Young and old are proud to chat to the Mayor and Mayoress. There were selfies galore and people were genuinely happy to chat and invite us to learn about the tribulations that Parkinsons carers suffer, to enjoy a row on the river, join the hard working am dram casts on stage, go to concerts, go on the radio…and, of course, to bend our ears about planning and potholes.

It’s worth stressing that it’s the chains that define the Mayoralty. Besieged for selfies from a Chelsea player, his minders and fans, after turning on Cobham’s Christmas lights, we popped the chains off and went into Waitrose. Nobody had a clue who we were. That’s the way it should be. We will be forgotten in a trice and the move to the new Mayor and Mayoress has been seamless. It’s the role that matters not the person.

The Mayor of Elmbridge is always invited to raise the awareness of a local charity and, if they can, to raise funds for them. I chose Oasis, a brilliant, small charity in Cobham which helps vulnerable families.

It’s impossible to avoid the startling statistics around violence toward women and family breakdown. It transcends class and the victims with no voice, are children. Oasis provides help and support for for families in crisis . They do an absolutely extraordinary job and raising funds for them was an honour.

There is a couple of regular fund raisers every year in aid of the Mayor’s chosen charity.

The Mayoress holds a “Ladies Lunch”, something of an anachronism, but an Elmbridge tradition that was not to be changed and, towards the end of the Mayoralty, the Mayor’s Ball is a huge event which raised considerable amounts of money for Oasis. We really appreciated the generosity of everyone who came.

There were other fundraising highlights. The ERA Fish & Chips Quiz Supper (being held again this year on 12th October) is always terrific fun and brilliantly put together by Joan Leifer and friends. This year, it raised over £500.

Esher Citizens’ Advice Bureau’s irrepressible Suki Richards worked with us to put on “Posting Letters to the Moon” at Esher Theatre. It is build around the moving wartime love letters between Celia Johnson, star of Brief Encounter and her husband Peter Fleming. They were beautifully read by Celia’s daughter Lucy and her husband Simon Williams – Mr Bellamy in Upstairs Downstairs and the scheming Justin Elliott in the Archers.

I chose April 13th (not a Friday) to jump out of a plane at 10,000 ft. with my son-in-law and a couple of brave chaps from the Hilton Hotel  in Cobham (who had hosted the Mayor’s Ball a few weeks before). We were, of course strapped to someone who knows what they are doing, but it was still exhilarating and, surprisingly, not very frightening.

In total, we managed to raise £36,000 for Oasis, but also managed to put them on the radar of a lot of people and our thanks go out, again, to everyone who contributed and who made it all such fun.

To sign off, we went to a Buckingham Palace garden party, where, surprisingly, the King and Queen failed to notice us, but the afternoon was wonderful. A sort of model of how I’d like everyday to be – people from all walks of life, every social strata, every belief/race under the sun, rejoicing. What’s not to like about that?

The sandwiches were great too.