THE QUEEN AND I
Scots fondly remember meeting the monarch ‘The Queen was in front of my car for 20 minutes’
THE PIANO TUNER
Piano tuner Gordon Bell was only 31 when the monarch awarded him the Royal Warrant – one of the youngest people in the UK to receive the honour, and now believed to be the only royal piano tuner left in Scotland.
The father of two, who has been a regular visitor to Balmoral Castle to maintain its three pianos, says the honour now carries even greater importance and poignancy following the death of the Queen.
Bell, 46, who is married to Lisa, 41, said: “I was awarded the Royal Warrant in 2008. I had been in business for only five years. She obviously believed I was worthy of it. The staff at Balmoral called Aberdeen’s Music Hall to find out who tuned their pianos and they recommended me.”
His first visit to the royal residence was nerve-racking but he was invited back and was later given the “by Royal Appointment” tag. The businessman, who supplied the piano for Classic FM’s 30th anniversary concert at St Margaret’s in nearby Braemar last Sunday – when King Charles III, then the Duke of Rothesay, was in attendance – remembered the first time he saw the Queen and Prince Philip.
“I took my wife Lisa to Balmoral while I was working there and we had joked that we were going up to see the Queen,” said Bell. “I later nipped out for a break with Lisa, who was sitting in the car waiting for me and reading a magazine about celebrities, and I spotted the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh walking down the driveway with the Corgis 50 yards away.
“They had been standing for 20 minutes in front of my car chatting to their housekeeper. Lisa had failed to lift her head to see the biggest A-list celebrity of her lifetime in real life! She did finally get her reward when we met the Queen at the royal garden party at Balmoral in 2012.
“The housekeeper introduced me as the man who tuned her pianos and we talked about the John Broadwood piano she had been given to mark her Silver Jubilee in 1977. It takes pride of place in the drawing room at Balmoral. Broadwood was a Scot who died in 1812 in London and his company is the oldest established piano manufacturer in the world. The Queen thanked me for looking after it.”
Bell visited Balmoral with his mother in April. He said: “We took pictures at the gates. My mum said it was one of her proudest moments.”
Of the Queen’s death, he said: “I feel deep sadness. But I also feel profound gratitude. By granting the Royal Warrant she has given me a great platform to succeed in business, it is her endorsement, and as a family we are proud of it and will treasure it always.”