We have little in common, the Queen and I, but our lives have touched three or four times, never, I feel sure, to any great impact upon her but always memorably on me.

When my wife and I were in Kenya on our honeymoon, the photographs in the corridors at Treetops reminded everyone who visited that remarkable tree house by the waterhole in the Aberdare mountains, that the young Princess Elizabeth was there when she learned of the death of her beloved father in February 1952.  The accommodation was hardly fit for a European monarch and had not improved to royal standards by the time we were there some thirty years later. But we must have experienced the same magic - the sound of the weaver birds chattering in the reeds at dusk and the gentle snuffling of the rhino who came down to drink at night.

When I first met the Queen in the early seventies, I had no idea that I would take my honeymoon in the lodge where she stayed. Our first meeting was in my school biology laboratory, where a Royal visit marked the 150th anniversary of the school where I had taken up my first teaching post.

We, the younger teachers, had been told not to expect any contact as the Royal party were escorted through.  I had briefed my pupils: Her Majesty is unlikely to stop when she gets to you; if she does, don’t initiate a conversation; only speak to her if she speaks to you.

I had not realised how diminutive she is and how strikingly beautiful – she was then as she is today. She brings with her into a room an indefinable something that is, at the same time, both fairy tale and real. She smiles with her eyes as well as her mouth; and when she talks she puts you at once at ease. And then she moves on and you feel as though you’ve been touched by a magic wand – and you don’t remember the words of the conversation, just her presence.

I left her and stood back while she was taken down one side of my lab to where some boys were looking after the biology department’s tame white rats. She entered the group and stopped; and I watched horrified as Angus lifted up each rat briefly and carefully by its tail and pointed out to Her Majesty how she could tell the difference between male and female – should she ever want to do so. The Queen looked over at me, laughed gently with them and they spoke for a moment or two before she passed on, and out into the cold.

The most recent occasion when the Queen and I came face to face again was at Buckingham Palace. When I retired from my career in education there was an opportunity to attend a Garden Party if you had not already been to one.

I wrote to the Palace explaining that I had already attended one some years ago but that it would be a wonderful treat for my wife, who had supported me at countless formal occasions over the years, to be invited to Buckingham Palace for a formal occasion of a quite different nature.

As evidence that such matters are dealt with by thoughtful staff, the invitations did arrive, early enough not only to surprise and delight my wife but also to give her time to look forward to the occasion and to plan and re-plan what she would wear.

It was a perfect summer’s day, no wind to blow away the hats, sunshine not too hot. We managed to be in the right place as the courtiers dipped at random into the crowds to choose people to meet the Queen. Her Majesty still struck me, after all those years, as radiantly beautiful, her skin evidence of the care she has taken of herself. Her eyes still sparkle when she talks and she asks all the right questions – the ones that allow you to speak without becoming embarrassingly garrulous. And when, after the two minutes that feel like ten seconds have passed, she moves gracefully on, and you are left feeling as though you have been shown a great kindness by this gentle Monarch.

You have met someone almost ordinary yet extraordinary; someone who has been strong in adversity, faithful to her subjects, remarkably hard-working, a mother and grandmother to her family and a devout Christian, someone who knows the Lord and to whom being Defender of the Faith means more than simply lip-service to an institution.

Someone whose presence can bring a deep and lasting pleasure.

TIM TURVEY
Didsbury England