Most people remember the late Queen Elizabeth II as a serious leader who seemed reserved in her public appearances. However, it appears that the Queen was quite different in private and was known for a great sense of humor.
Following her death, various videos documenting the rarely-seen side of Queen Elizabeth II started trending on social media. Many of them have some great stories, but the one we liked the most features her personal protection officer Richard Griffin telling the story of how a clueless tourist once asked the Queen to take a photo of him.
According to Griffin, he and the Queen were having a picnic near Balmoral Castle before deciding to go for a walk. Usually, there were no other people there, but in this instance, they came across a couple of tourists on a “walking holiday.”
The Queen stopped to say hello as she always did, but then something strange happened.
“It was clear from the moment we first stopped that they hadn’t recognized the Queen,” shares Griffin.
As it turned out, the clueless tourists thought the Queen was just some old lady doing her afternoon stroll. They chatted with her a bit and even got around to asking whether she ever met the Queen.
“As quick as a flash, she said, ‘Well I haven’t but Dick here meets her regularly.’ So the guy asked me what she was like,” recalled Griffin. “And because I was with her a long time, I could pull her leg, so I said she could be very cantankerous at times, but she’s got a lovely sense of humor.”
After the exchange, one of the tourists wanted to have his photo taken with Griffin, so he asked the Queen to do it. And she happily obliged. She even posed for another photo herself.
“Then Her Majesty said to me that she’d love to be a fly on the wall when he shows these photos to his American friends, and hopefully someone tells him who I am,” Griffin added.
Check out the full video below.
