FIT FOR OUR QUEEN
actually teachers. We empower people.” At that point, the Duke’s patience snapped. “EMPOWER?” he guffawed, “That doesn’t sound like English to me.”
By now Philip was beginning to attract attention, not least the Queen’s.
Then – by some miracle of stately semaphore – the Queen signalled and he shut his mouth mid-sentence with a snap.
But the Queen was always grateful for Philip’s advice in private.
During a visit to Commonwealth Games Malaysia her dresser, Angela Kelly, found that the hat packed for the Queen’s outfit was too avant garde. But the in she discovered that it could be salvaged if only she could persuade the Queen to wear it back to front.
Angela recalled in her book, The Other Side Of The Coin: “After an amusing conversation, in which I imagine the Duke didn’t hold back, the Queen decided to wear the hat the wrong way around.”
Throughout nearly 70 years as head of the Commonwealth, the Queen has always been careful to avoid any direct intervention in global politics.
That does not, however, mean that she has not used her influence.
When Britain’s PM Ted Heath – who hated the Commonwealth and loved the fledgling EU – tried to keep her away from the 1973 Commonwealth summit in Ottawa, she side-stepped his advice and accepted her invitation as Queen of Canada.
And when Labour’s 1960s prime minister Harold Wilson tried to belittle the first Commonwealth secretary-general, the Queen invited him to a palace banquet and redrafted the order of precedence to make him the most senior diplomat in Britain.
One of Nelson Mandela’s first acts on becoming South Africa’s president in 1994, after decades as a political prisoner of the apartheid regime, was to apply to rejoin the Commonwealth.
He went on to become a firm favourite of the Queen, becoming one of only two men to call her Elizabeth – the other being Philip – and was not above flirting with her.
At one Commonwealth reception he complimented her glowingly immaculate appearance.
The Queen joked: “Well tomorrow I’m going to see 16 people. I may not look so good tomorrow.”
And backstage, the Queen appreciated some of her household’s pranks.
In Australia for the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, Angela Kelly laid out the Monarch’s outfit for an evening barbecue.
The brim of her hat had corks dangling from pieces of string, like the hats traditionally worn by Aussie swagmen and jackaroos in the fly-blown Outback.
The joke wasn’t wasted on the Queen who immediately snatched up the hat and everyone held their breath for a second.
“The Queen lifted the hat and pretended to put it on, laughing at herself,” remembers Angela. on her