When Mum finally met the Queen

My MUM met the Queen in Perth during her 2011 tour and had a one-on-one greeting with Her Majesty. This was 57 years after a tour where a meeting between Mum and the Queen had to be cancelled because of a polio outbreak.

An aide had told us the Queen’s favourite flowers were home-grown, scented, English roses. So the night before, Mum and i set out with a bucket and secateurs, raiding neighbours’ gardens. We practised the bouquet handover in the back garden for hours, yet when the moment came Mum, with early onset Alzheimer’s, thought momentarily she was the Queen and refused to hand them over.

Her Majesty lowered her smiling face into the roses, firmly grasped them out of Mum’s hands and declared them beautiful, saying how lovely it was to finally meet norma.