Broadcaster JJ Chalmers has revealed how honoured he felt when the Queen revealed she had watched him perform on Strictly Come Dancing.
The former Strathallan pupil was stunned when Her Majesty told how she’d enjoyed his performance in a kind handwritten note to his father.
Ex-Royal Marine and friend of Prince Harry, JJ was seriously injured in Afghanistan in 2011 in a blast that killed two of his colleagues.
The 35-year-old, who served with Harry in Afghanistan, suffered a broken neck, lost two fingers, and almost lost both arms in the explosion.
While undergoing some 30 operations over the following four years, the former military man won a medal in the 2014 Invictus Games, scooping a bronze for GB in non-amputee cycling.
He also started a career in broadcasting, covering events including the death of Prince Philip in 2021, and taking part in Strictly Come Dancing in 2020.
JJ was speaking to BBC’s Huw Edwards on Sunday amid ongoing coverage of the Queen’s death about the sweet note his dad John, one of Her Majesty’s chaplains for nearly a decade, had received.
Discussing the connection to the Royal Family, JJ said: “It’s a remarkable thing to have a relationship with the Royal Family of my own, and then the relationship my father’s had for a very long time with the Queen, and some of the occasions that I’ve met her with my father.”
He then revealed: “One of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen, following the death of her husband, my father had written to her and she returned a letter which was typed and had all the expected notes with it.
“But at the bottom there was a handwritten message.
“It said ‘I’ve just realised that the JJ Chalmers that I’ve been watching on the coverage of my husband’s funeral is the same JJ Chalmers that you told me of being injured all those years ago’. And also a line that said ‘and the same JJ Chalmers I enjoyed watching on Strictly Come Dancing’.”
Speaking earlier in the interview about the Queen’s relationship with the forces, JJ said: “First and foremost she was our Commander-in-Chief. She was the boss.
“And I say that as a real term of endearment, we called her the boss, that’s a real respect.
“Also, apart from the formal role she held at the top of the military, is actually her time as a veteran herself, serving during the Second World War as a mechanic, the first woman in the Royal Family to serve in a full-time role within the military.
“That understanding of what it means to serve, not just your country, but in the armed forces.”
