The time I doorstepped the Queen

“We’ll meet again”. Only the Queen could have comforted the nation convincingly in the depths of the Covid lockdown by deploying that line from Vera Lynn’s Second World War torch song.

Her Majesty knew whereof she spoke. Both she and her son and heir, Prince Charles, tested positive during the pandemic. Having lived through the war as a young woman, including “conga-ing into Buckingham palace” during victory celebrations, Her Majesty has profound experience of the emotions stirred by national crisis. 

There was also a unique personal aspect to her words because, on the form of her seventy years on the throne, they may well be true. Queen Elizabeth II has met, or been seen in the flesh, by more people on these islands than anyone else. In recent years age and Covid have slowed down her Majesty’s meet-and-greet rate but it is still estimated that she has encountered about one in three of us in person. 

I am one of them. I have met the Queen several times in the line of duty. Journalism offers a vicarious front-row seat to events. It would be a poor show if a political correspondent had never come across the Head of State — at least that is the view they take at the Palace. Every couple of years or so, political editors can expect to receive the stiffest of “stiffy” cards. It would be wrong to describe them as invitations because they are commands, embossed with the words “The Queen Commands” the recipient to attend a specified event. 

As every re-hashed Platinum Jubilee tribute filling space in news outlets is pointing out, the Commonwealth matters a lot to the Royal Family. The Queen is Queen of some fifteen of its member states, a slowly diminishing number, but then most of the rest also used to be in the British Empire. 

At the CHOGM — the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting — in Vancouver in 1987 the Queen came to visit the media. I ended up making international front page bulletin-leading news by conducting what remains the only “doorstep”, or spontaneous interview on a matter of political substance, or her reign. It lasts all of nineteen seconds.

AB: Are you looking forward to the summit, at all? 

HMQ: Yes it will be very interesting. Rather busy! 

AB: Are you worried about Fiji, Sri Lanka? 

 HMQ: Well, yes, I think it’s very sad, yes. Very sad. 

 AB: He [referring to Canadian PM Mulroney escorting her] thinks you’ve got a further statement to make on the subject. 

 HRH: I know, [nodding and smiling] we’ve all been hearing that! 

 AB: Is it true? 

 HRH : Ah-hah! [turns to leave] 

 MULRONEY: No comment [smiling] 

At a State Banquet later the Queen went on to refer to her regret about Fiji temporarily leaving the Commonwealth following political upheavals. I never intended to get a scoop. I’d checked we were allowed to have the camera rolling because I thought my bosses back at TV-am would like to see the monarch visiting the team. After we greeted the Queen there was an instant when I realised she was expecting me to say something more, so I blurted out what was on my mind: the story I was working on. At that time, I often found myself on the diplomatic beat as a junior go-between for the distinguished veterans Jon Snow of ITN and John Simpson of the BBC. I only realised that I’d made TV history when John, who had missed the walkabout, asked me if there was anything going on. The colour drained from his face when I told him I’d shared had a few words with the Queen about Fiji. 

At royal receptions, nobody is allowed to shrink shyly into the background. Courtiers keep an eye on the guests and whip the reluctant in for a meeting with the words “have you met the Queen” before gently propelling you into her presence. There was no hanging back at the next CHOGM command invitation, this time on the deck of the royal yacht Britannia, then moored off Kuala Lumpur. I confessed to her Majesty that I was the one guilty of lège-majesté in Canada. She was not bothered. “Ah it was you” was her only comment. 

The invitations still kept coming, including to a memorable post-Diana “re-set” reception for the British media at Windsor Castle. At a similar tech event in London, my friend Kay Burley introduced the Queen to the wonders of the Sky electronic programme guide. The hapless John Major was locked in simultaneous negotiations with the EU when the Queen commanded our presence in Edinburgh. The Prime Minister’s timetable ruled out cocktail-o’clock drinks. We were commanded instead to Holyrood Palace for morning coffee. The earliness of the hour didn’t stop Princess Anne from vamping around the hacks in a sweater dress or Prince Philip making small talk with his usual abruptness.

Some journalists, notably the ITN anchor Tom Bradby and Kirsty Young, who is presenting the BBC’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, have become friends of the royal family. Not me. I have never had a reason to meet Princes Charles, Edward, William or Harry. Diana walked past me when she was leaving the QE II centre as I was arriving. I found out later that she had just given a speech about withdrawing from public life but I got the vibe anyway that it was not the moment for a chat. I was struck then that the Princess was on her own without any apparent security detail.

Shortly after Robert Maxwell fell off his yacht, The Lady Ghislaine, Prince Andrew was a sporting guest of honour at a dinner for the Foreign Press Association, which I attended for some reason. Andrew’s friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell is now well known but he seemed to enjoy the off-colour jokes circulating about her father’s demise which I passed on. I had managed, again, to blurt out inappropriate material to plug awkward pauses in my conversations with royals. I just do not get it right where they are concerned. The Daily Mail had a go at the pink jacket I wore — under instructions to look celebratory — when covering the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Thames river pageant. 

Outlasting Victoria to become our longest-serving monarch is something to celebrate. Her Majesty has only got a couple of years to go to snatch the European record from Louis Quatorze and he started as a boy. 

This weekend, with her characteristic determination and sense of service, Elizabeth II is determined to meet again and be seen in person by as many of her subjects as she can. Brushing aside infirmity she has already been out and about at the Windsor Horse Show and the Chelsea Flower Show. She is planning appearances on the palace balcony and will attend several of the public “entertainments” to celebrate her long reign. 

The Queen cannot possibly remember all the people she meets. But nobody ever forgets meeting the Queen.