A fleeting but special Balmoral encounter
In 2013, just as autumn was starting to set in in Scotland, I joined the many thousands who can lay claim to having met and chatted to the Queen. My meeting was at Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s private castle and summer bolthole.
Entry was strictly by invitation and very, very rarely included media. It was a rarely seen part of the Queen’s life.
I was there courtesy of former Prime Minister Sir John Key — Key was one of few foreign leaders to be extended an invitation to Balmoral and his entire family had been invited for a weekend.
In an even rarer move, two members of the New Zealand media were allowed in to capture a photo and footage of the start of the Queen’s meeting with Key in her private sitting room.
We had glimpsed her the day before, just outside Balmoral’s walls, driving past in a convoy on the way back from a day out. She was at the wheel of a Range Rover while others were driven by Prince William and Prince Phillip.
The TVNZ cameraman and I dressed up for the big day and were taken into the grounds and up to the Queen’s sitting room ahead of the meeting. We had been told she might or might not speak to us and that a curtsy or nod of the head was an optional activity.
It turned out the Queen was in the mood for a chat. We were the only ones in the room and she headed straight over for introductions.
It was not an extended conversation and so innocuous I have thus far kept it secret, partly because of protocol but also because as a secret it has some of the allure of mystery, at least.
But it also backed what prime ministers who had met her said about her being very human.
I do not know what I expected the Queen to chat about. I did not expect her to be worrying that her sitting room was messy and did not pass muster for her visitors from afar.
We reassured her, and then Key arrived. She went over to welcome him and checked whether he had been cold in the famously chilly castle.
The clutter was part of the charm and its contents came in for significant scrutiny once the photos were released. Correspondence was scattered around her desk, there were family portraits, dog beds, a plain electric heater, and homely furniture. As a dog lover, it was disappointing that the corgis (then Holly and Willow) were not there but all around the hallways of Balmoral were little bowls of dog biscuits on shelves for the Queen to offer a snack.
I found myself in another of the Queen’s reception rooms in 2018 — this time the more formal Buckingham Palace. The Prime Minister was Jacinda Ardern, who was meeting the Queen with her partner Clarke Gayford during the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in London.
The room was not cluttered or homely, it was the formal room in which the Queen held all her meetings and had featured in many photographs.
There was no chatting on that more formal occasion, but I will always have Balmoral.