FANCY MEETING YOU HERE

While the Jubilee weekend was full of wonderful anecdotes about HM, one of our favourites came from former protection officer Richard Griffin on Sky News. He recalled a picnic that he went on with the Queen near Balmoral, when they met two American tourists on a walking holiday, who didn’t realise quite the exalted company that they were in.

“The American gentleman was chatting to the Queen about where they came from, where they were going next and where they’d been in Britain. I could see it coming, and sure enough he said to Her Majesty: ‘And where do you live?’ She said, ‘Well, I live in London, but I’ve got a holiday home just the other side of the hills.’ And he said: ‘How often have you been coming up here?’ – ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’ve been coming up here ever since I was a little girl, so over 80 years.’ You could see the cogs going, and he said, ‘Well, if you’ve been coming here for 80 years, you must have met the Queen.’ As quick as a flash, she said: ‘Well, I haven’t, but Dickie [gesturing to me] meets her regularly.’ So the guy said to me, ‘You’ve met the Queen – what’s she like?’ And because I had been with her for a long time and I knew I could pull her leg, I said, ‘Well, she can be very cantankerous at times, but she’s got a lovely sense of humour.’ The next thing I knew, this guy comes round, puts his arm around my shoulder and before I could see what was happening, he gets his camera, gives it to the Queen and says: ‘Can you take a picture of the two of us?’ Anyway, we swapped places and I took a picture of them with the Queen and we never let on. We waved goodbye and Her Majesty said to me ‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those photographs to his friends in America. Hopefully someone tells him who I am.’”