Ready or not, here one comes!
Did the Queen really play hide and seek with Harold Wilson?
IT wasn’t the sort of meeting where one would expect much in the way of fun and games.
Yet when Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson went to visit the Queen on her estate at Balmoral, it appears they ended up playing a high-spirited version of hide and seek.
Newly published correspondence between the head of HM Government and the Head of State suggests that during a weekend visit in 1967, they amused themselves by playing an energetic game called Stone.
A letter from Buckingham Palace to Mr Wilson, who visited Balmoral with his wife Mary, says: ‘Dear Prime Minister, I hope you have both recovered from your exertions last evening.’
Although the letter does not spell out details of the game, the comments suggest it is a form of hide and seek.
In a remark which at the time was perfectly acceptable but would now be condemned as racist, the letter jokes that people of Asian or African origin would be better able to hide in the darkness while playing.
It states: ‘Perhaps one of the games might come in handy at the next Commonwealth Conference.
‘Colour would be a positive advantage when playing Stone. Invisible!’
The previously classified letters, newly released by the National Archives at Kew, give a glimpse into the Royals’ fun-loving home life. A former equerry, who has now retired, said: ‘Like any other family, they like to let their hair down.
‘The Queen enjoys party games and jigsaws, while the Queen Mother was very fond of card games, Highland reels and dancing the conga.’
Although the origins and exact rules of Stone are obscure, it is clearly a favourite of the Royal household and was mentioned by Princess Alexandra after a visit to Balmoral in 1952. In a handwritten note, put up for auction in 2010, she stated that, while playing the game, a man named Martin, ‘bit me quite accidentally on the mouth, which was extremely painful’.
She went on to brand Prince Charles, then four, a ‘gruesome child’ after he insisted on watching the resulting blister being lanced by a doctor.
Royal insiders say the Queen regularly entertains her Balmoral guests with after-dinner ‘parlour and party games’, with charades being a per- sonal favourite. In 2011 the Honourable Margaret Rhodes, a cousin of the Queen, said she witnessed a bizarre game called Are You There, Moriarty? being played by royal visitors.
This, she said, involved participants rolling on the ground while being beaten on the head with rolled up newspapers.
Mr Wilson served two terms as Prime Minister, 1964-70 and 1974-76.
The Palace declined to comment on the newly released documents.