Queen Elizabeth II’s former bodyguard has revealed what the monarch said to an American hiker who asked her whether she “had met the Queen”.
The former royal protection officer Richard Griffin, who was known as Dick, recalled the time when Her Majesty was out in the hills near her Scottish castle at Balmoral when two tourists on holiday approached and one of them engaged her in conversation.
The hiker asked the Queen where exactly she lived, to which she responded: London.
The Queen, who died at the Balmoral castle on Thursday (8 September) afternoon, told the hiker that she had a holiday home just over the hill and had been visiting the area for more than 80 years since she was a child.
Clueless about the fact that they were speaking to Her Majesty, the hiker asked whether the Queen “had met the Queen”.
“Quick as a flash she said: ‘I haven’t, but Dick here meets her regularly’,” Dick told Sky News during celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne earlier this year.
The hiker then asked Dick what the Queen was like in person.
“Because I was with her a long time and I knew I could pull her leg, I said ‘oh, she can be very cantankerous at times, but she’s got a lovely sense of humour’,” he said.
After hearing his response, the hiker requested the Queen to click a picture of him with Dick.
“Before I could see what was happening, he gets his camera and gives it to the queen and says ‘can you take a picture of us?’”
The queen obliged, and then Dick took the camera and clicked a picture of her with the hikers.
Later, the Queen told Dick: “I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those photographs to friends in America and hopefully someone tells him who I am.”
Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-serving monarch, died aged 96, with her son Charles succeeding her as the nation’s new king.
The Queen died “peacefully” at Balmoral, according to Buckingham Palace, having spent 70 years as head of state, outlasting her predecessors and overseeing monumental changes in social and political life.
