Two long-serving charity volunteers were invited to a “golden ticket” experience at the 'Royal Carols: Together at Christmas' service at Westminster Abbey.
Eileen Smith and Christine Lucas help at Willow Wood Hospice in Ashton and were nominated to attend the special performance by Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, Mark Llewellin.
They were among 1,600 other nominees at the concert, hosted for the fourth successive year by the Princess of Wales.
“There were a lot of famous faces you see on TV there, so we were star spotting!” said Eileen, from Stalybridge.
“We were in the knave near the door so we could actually see the Prince and Princess of Wales come in with their little ones. We recognised Zara Tindall and all of the Royal Family, who came in first.
“We all had a candle which they lit for us. Gregory Porter started off by singing a carol and Prince William gave a speech. We sang carols and there was a lovely service.
“We waited for the Royal Family to disperse and then we went outside into the darkness, where all the lights were on and it was just so lovely.”
Eileen, has volunteered at the hospice since it opened in 1999 and has raised more than £65,000 since taking over the running of its annual Flower Festival in 2015.
“Christine is also very active on the Flower Festival committee, so she was an obvious person to come with me,” she added.
It was the first carol concert hosted by the Princess of Wales since confirming in September that she had completed her cancer treatment and is available to stream on ITVX.
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