Princess Kate's brother, James Middleton, is opening up about his special relationship with the late Queen Elizabeth and the void she used to fill in his life.
In an excerpt of his upcoming book Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, recently published in the Daily Mail, Middleton opened up not only about his mental health and experience with suicidal ideation (that he credits his dog, Ella, with saving his life) but his special relationship with the former Queen of England.
"At Sandringham Christmases, we joined in the family gathering. Beatrice and Eugenie, whom I knew from school, would be there and we’d all go to church in the morning," Middleton writes.
"One year the Queen and I sat down to do a jigsaw puzzle. It was the sort of activity I’d have enjoyed with my own grandparents, all four of whom had died in the space of three years when I was a teenager," he continued. "So in a way, I felt the Queen was filling a granny-sized void in my life."
"And there we were, engaged in this everyday pleasure, which was elevated to the extraordinary by the company I was in," Middleton adds. "It still feels surreal, the fact that I was there with the Queen: I look back on it with amazement."
In addition to the friendly game, Middleton went on to say that the Queen talked to him "about beekeeping," adding that he knew the Queen took a particular liking to the process.
"The Queen talked to me about beekeeping and I knew she appreciated the effort it takes for a colony of bees to produce enough honey for a jar," he explained.
"I’ve been a passionate advocate of these ingenious, industrious little creatures since I became a beekeeper nearly a decade ago, having fallen for them as a child. I now have almost half a million bees in eight hives in a meadow at Bucklebury, and I’m in awe of them."
In fact, according to Middleton, he even gifted the late monarch with a jar of honey, "a gift from a queen to the Queen," he writes, that "seemed fitting."
"There were presents, too, modest but wrapped with care. Mine from Her Majesty was a pair of socks; I gave her a card with a photo of Ella on it and a few jars of my own honey, which I brought down to breakfast on Christmas morning," he adds.
