A SCOUT volunteer from Hereford met the Queen at a special garden party held at Buckingham Palace in London.

Matthew Bayley, 25, was invited to the event in recognition of his voluntary work with scouting in Herefordshire.

He has been involved in Scouting since he was six-years-old and during the last seven years has taken up a voluntary leader role, most recently helping to manage and support Scouting across the county.

During the garden party, Matthew and his mother, Claire Bayley, who also volunteers with the Scouts, were presented to the Queen, who is patron of the organisation.

Matthew said: "The Queen was very interested in Scouting in Herefordshire and was pleased to hear about our recent successes with the opening of new sections in rural Herefordshire and several of our young people recently achieving the Queen’s Scout Award, the top award Scouting has to offer young people.

"We spoke about the challenges of finding new adult volunteers to run activities and the Queen said it was sad that people don’t step forward as readily as they used to."

After speaking to Her Majesty for several minutes the pair were left to enjoy the sights and sounds of the party which saw the 8,000 attendees drink 27,000 cups of tea and eat 20,000 sandwiches and pieces of cake.

Every year the Queen hosts three garden parties at Buckingham Palace to recognise and reward public service. Jim Kenyon, former mayor and the Right Reverend Richard Frith, Bishop of Hereford were also invited to event.

If you could spare some time for your local Scout group then visit scouts.org.uk/join or email join@hfdscouts.org.uk