Commonwealth Games and The Queen’s Baton

For almost 300 days, the Queen’s Baton travelled across 70 nations and territories covering 190,000km and carried by many thousands of people. There were 4,000 baton bearers during the 40 days travelling all across Scotland, I know two people linked with Glasgow pharmacy services who were chosen to participate. Fran McKeown, Administrative Assistant Preparative Services at Glasgow’s New Victoria Hospital was chosen for her work supporting people to become more active as a Jog leader with Renfrewshire’s “Jogging Buddies” which is part of Active Communities.

Liz Grant, Lead Public Health Pharmacist, Health Improvement in NHSGGC was chosen in recognition of her fundraising over the years. She tells me that she had an absolute ball; and you can tell that from the photo. She couldn’t believe how many people there were watching, including some colleagues who had travelled to see her and everybody was cheering (including the workmen on the roof of one of the houses). Liz says it was a great honour to be chosen and she will remember it for the rest of her life.

The baton also stopped off at two Glasgow hospitals, the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, before it reached Celtic Park during the opening ceremony. So what happens to the baton now? For the past couple of days it has been in the Athlete Village at Dalmarnock allowing athletes a chance to hold the baton and have some photographs taken with it. There is also the chance for some of the volunteers to get their hands on it. Sean MacBride-Stewart was the first of our pharmacy team to manage to grab a picture with the baton.

I think one of the impressive things about the baton is that it is the same one that has made the full journey. Beautifully crafted from elm, titanium and granite using traditional ship building techniques and state of the art technology, you can see the wear on the wooden handle caused by the many thousands of hands that have helped it make that epic journey.