the story of how Queen Elizabeth An encounter with an American pedestrian who doesn’t recognize him, narrated by a former bodyguard who was with him that day, reveals a funny side of his personality that the public has rarely seen.
He died on Thursday at the age of 96 after more than 70 years on the throne.
Former royal security officer Richard Griffin, better known as Dick, said the monarch was in the hills near his Scottish palace in Balmoral when two American tourists came on vacation and one of them chatted with him.
The hiker asked the Queen where she lived, so she told London, adding that she had a holiday home on top of the hill and had been visiting the area for more than 80 years as a little girl. She didn’t say she was referring to Balmoral.
Griffin said that knowing that the palace was in the vicinity, the traveler asked her if she had ever met the queen.
“Quick as a flash she said: ‘I didn’t, but Dick meets her here regularly,'” Griffin said on Sky News earlier this year during the ceremony for Elizabeth’s 70 years on the throne.
The hiker asked Griffin how the emperor was in person.
“Because I was with her a long time and I knew I could pull her leg (tease her), I said ‘Oh, she can be very irritable at times, but she has a lovely sense of humour’ ‘,” Griffin said.
Delighted, the traveler placed his hand on Griffin’s shoulder and asked if he could photograph the two of them together.
“Before I could see what was happening, he takes his camera and gives it to the Queen and says ‘Can you take a picture of us?
The Queen obliged, and then Griffin took the camera and took a picture of her with the pair of hikers.
Later, Griffin said, the Queen told him: “I would love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those pictures to friends in America and hopefully someone will tell him who I am.”
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