Every so often a vivid dream comes upon me about being in the presence of Her Royal Madgeness. I don’t know where it comes from, or goes to, but it is always less evanescent than the usual nocturnal rubbish. This morning, I was ushered into a reception room at Buck House where Her Britannic Majesty sat awaiting my approach. A lady-in-waiting offered a small glass of liqueur into which she pressed a raspberry … “this is for your toast”. So I raised the glass, drank it and said: “Here’s to my late Uncle Dusty. I do miss him!”
The Queen rose and we shook hands warmly … a smile of recognition on her face. “We met last year” I said “and we have met once or twice in the past but can’t remember exactly where … I expect you have the same problem!” Then she was off and I emerged blinking into the real world which always seems rather ordinary at times like this. I did snap the Queen once when she bade farewell to the First Fleet recreation at Portsmouth in 1987. Two years ago I visited the Queen’s Chapel at St James’s Palace and touched the Coronation Plate. I have patronised the adjacent closet. And I know where the Cambridges’ office is. I can also throw in a family link to Henry VIII via umpteen marriages and one or two wrong-side-of-the-blanket jobs, on my maternal grandmother’s side. Other than that I am quite common really. And if you’re nodding in agreement with that, please be discreet. I do have feelings.
The Queen arrives in The Solent in 1987 to see off ships taking part in Australia’s First Fleet recreation.
geoffreydaniel 