Pat Turnbull will maintain a proud tradition for her family as she helps the Queen to celebrate her 90th birthday this weekend.

For anyone to have a role in a huge national celebration would be a tremendous honour.

But for Pat it is even more special given she will carry on in the footsteps of her late sister, Nora, who died last week.

Armed with her flower arranging scissors, Pat, of Harrington Ling, Southwaite, travelled to the capital this week to help create a dozen 6ft high birthday candles from flowers, using 5,000 blooms specially imported from Cornwall and the Scilly Isles.

The candles, made entirely from flower heads in the royal colours of purple, red, white and blue, will take pride of place on the lawns outside Westminster Abbey.

“It is a huge honour to be part of a team commissioned by the National Association of Flower Arrangement Societies to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday,” said Pat.

She added: “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous to know what Her Majesty’s verdict will be when she sees the special floral designs.”

The displays will highlight and celebrate in flowers some of the many events that have taken place over the last nine decades, from the roaring twenties, through to the Second World War, and right up to the present day.

The candle display, explains Pat, has been designed by well-known Carlisle florist Derek Armstrong, who is a freelance floral designer and National NAFAS demonstrator and director. He is being assisted by David Ryland from Armathwaite.

“Derek will have been thinking of the design for the last six months, along with other NAFAS directors,” said Pat.

“We will be using quite a lot of chrysanthemums, simply because they will last longer and not droop. They have to stand for three days, sitting in the sun or whatever the weather chooses to do on those days,” she added.

Pat is very modest when it comes to explaining why she was chosen, but sitting in her farmhouse garden ablaze with colour on a sunny afternoon it was easy to see why she had been chosen for what might be to some such a formidable task.

Picking up a stray flower, Pat places it carefully in the magnificent floral arrangement she had just prepared that morning. “I love my garden, but to get it looking like this has seen me over the last fortnight getting up at 5am and collapsing into my bed at 8pm,” laughed Pat.

“It didn’t always look like this though. It was a bit like topsy. It used to be a paddock with fruit trees, then we had a conservatory built. My husband, Matthew, said we couldn’t go on looking out on the little scrubby nettles patch, so I put on my gardening gloves and got cracking.”

While mourning the loss of her sister, Pat is adamant ‘life must go on’, and says Nora while applauding her being chosen for the royal task, would have ribbed her by claiming she was a much better flower arranger!

“It is rather ironic that Nora was a flower arranger for the Queen’s 60th birthday celebrations, but I must admit she would have been right, she was a much better flower arranger than me.”

“We were very close even though she lived in Christchurch, and she was 18 years older than me. She had dementia, but died of a heart attack. It was awful. I hated going to see her, but she recognised me right up until the end. If she hadn’t I would not have gone to visit her.”

Dotted here and there are traces of the English afternoon tea Pat hosted for the Stanwix Flower Club, of which she was past chairman. Red, white and blue bunting and Union Jack flags flutter in the light wind.

“It was manic. We had lots of bunting and marquees, and home-baked mini quiches, carrot cake, scones, jam and cream, and lemon drizzle cake, and a glass of fizz to toast the Queen’s birthday.”

Firmly securing a union jack that had come loose on one of the farm gates, Pat said she could have accommodated more than the 60 invited guests. “Normally when I do something like this it pours down and to have 60 in the house is a nightmare. I can get a lot more than 60 in the garden.”

For Pat a garden tea party is a normal occurrence. She hosts many wearing her other hat as the head of a team of selfless volunteers, who give up huge chunks of their lives to help others less fortunate than themselves.

As chairman of the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute (RABI), Pat and other farmers’ wives, raise thousands each year to provide a lifeline for those Cumbrian farming families in need.

“Every single penny earned in Cumbria is spent in Cumbria,” said Pat, chairman of the Cumbria branch of RABI. “We are not aware of who the beneficiaries are and that’s the way it should be,” she added.

Pat is part of a team of 10 – all of whom are married to farmers. During the year they organise fundraising activities such as hog roasts, cream teas, Farmhouse Breakfast Week and ‘ladies who lunch’. They are also out in force at agricultural shows and auctions with their raffle books. Pat added: “Things are desperate at the moment for some farmers. We know they are proud people, because we are farmers ourselves. It takes great courage to ask for help, but sometimes there is no other way.”

“I believe that the message is getting out there more now. We have committees all over the country, not just in Cumbria, and this has helped launch an awareness of the charity.”