He walked to Buckingham Palace to receive a prestigious award for poetry from King Charles

His Majesty Charles III awarded George Szirtes, who is of Hungarian descent, with the King's Gold Medal for Poetry. The prestigious award, which is awarded for lifetime achievement or an outstanding collection of poetry, was presented to Szirtes by King Charles at Buckingham Palace on November 26.

“A very decent man, I felt”

Among others, Szirtes is known as the translator of the works of Hungarian authors such as Sándor Márai and Magda Szabó, as well as László Krasznahorkai's Sátántangó. He shared his impressions of the ceremony in an entertaining Facebook post.

The post reveals that shortly before the ceremony, he ate teriyaki chicken near Victoria Station. Afterwards, he asked nearby taxi drivers how long it would take them to drive him to the palace. When he found out that they couldn't drive there due to a farmers' protest, he set off on foot for the royal residence.

The usual gaggle of visitors were outside the railings. At the correct gate I waved to the policemen (and soldiers with automatic rifles) who, having checked my IDs, courteously let me in, – Szirtes shared.

The king, however, who was coming back from Sandringham, could not come on foot, so they waited for him for more than half an hour because he was stuck in traffic. Szirtes exchanged a few words with the monarch and, as he writes, was surprised to find that they were almost the same height. “A very decent man, I felt. The medal, when I got round to looking at it, had his face on it.”

He wouldn't move there

Szirtes was then photographed with the medal, after which he slowly walked back to the station. “All rather dreamlike in retrospect. I would not fancy living in Buck House. It feels cold in temper, like an enormous blob of Victorian ice cream with a golden Flake stuck in it. The King doesn't live there either. I don't blame him. But the medal is nice.” – Szirtes concluded.

Szirtes arrived in the United Kingdom in 1956 at the age of eight and went on to become an important figure in the country's literary life. His poems typically explore contemporary themes and reflect on current events in the world. Several of his works have been published in Hungarian, most recently the memoir The Photographer at Sixteen, in which he recounts his mother's life story.