How the Queen laughed when I told her about the House of Lords’ snores
I KNOW how fortunate I am to be able to say that I met the Queen on many occasions.
We have shared dinners, lunches, banquets, drinks, a Trooping the Colour and state openings.
And whatever you thought about her, you can multiply it by 1,000.
She was simply incredible — inspirational, funny, kind, interesting and interested.
My first meeting with her was in 2004, when she invited 100 women for lunch at Buckingham Palace. It was called the Women of Achievement Lunch.
I was with J.K. Rowling and Margaret Thatcher, and we watched in awe as she moved across the room, chatting and meeting people.
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When she was introduced to me, a long list of my roles was read out and she simply said: “How on earth do you do all that?”
Smiling, I replied: “Like you, Ma’am, I’m a working mother — and, as Margaret said, ‘If you want something said ask a man, and if you want something done ask a woman’.
She gave a wry smile. We had connected.
The lunch was due to finish at 2pm but didn’t end until 3pm, by which time she told us we had to leave — I have to admit, I’ve been slung out of worse places.
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She said she had never heard such noise in the room — us women wouldn’t stop talking.
I also imagine she’d never had a guest smoke out of the Palace window before.
She had Kate Moss to thank for that one.
It was a riot. Plenty of bottles of champagne and wine were drunk and she seemed to love every minute of it.
It was meant to be an annual event but it never was repeated — she probably needed to lie down in a dark room to get over it.
Following on from our first meeting I was invited to various other dinners and banquets, including for my own CBE award. All very formal and much more well behaved.
But one day in 2018 a gold envelope embossed with HRH — and my name written in beautifully ornate calligraphy — arrived at my home.
It was an invite to an intimate lunch with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
There was no occasion but ten people had been invited, all of whom, I was told, had been hand-picked by Her Majesty.
They were people she had chosen to lunch with, not those she had been told to lunch with. I felt honoured and blown away.
The guests included Dame Katherine Grainger, chair of UK Sport, Sue Vinnicombe, founder- director of the Cranfield International Centre for Women Leaders and Ian Bell, chief executive of The British Association for Shooting and Conservation.
We had pre-lunch drinks in the drawing room — it’s one of the more intimate rooms in Buckingham Place but still very opulent.
Beautiful skin and happy disposition
When the Queen entered the room, it lit up. She was much smaller up close but with beautiful skin, a happy disposition — and sensible shoes, unlike mine.
She carried a handbag, which I thought strange bearing in mind she was in her own home, but I suppose that was one of her trademarks.
She sipped a Campari, but had only one.
We talked about her family and she spoke with pride about her great grandchildren and what they were doing that day.
She knew about West Ham FC — she told me she had gone off football and didn’t like the atmosphere any more, which made me sad. She knew we had moved into the Olympic Stadium, which she declared as impressive, but was most interested in my take about the House of Lords.
We laughed when I recalled the snoring that comes from the library late at night.
What struck me was that being the Queen was her job but not her identity. She was funny, genuine, and great company.
As we sat down to dine on a feast that included egg tart, lamb and Buckingham Palace’s own pistachio ice cream, paired with fine wines, I almost forgot that we were dining with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
Almost. But not quite.
She was generous with her time and her conversation. I wondered if she really under-stood the positive impact that she had on people.
People also always talked about the Queen’s impeccable manners.
She was so keen for people to feel at ease, that she used her handbag as a signal to her ladies-in-waiting when she wanted to stop talking to someone and move on, rather than hurting anyone’s feelings.
She had kindness in abundance
Perhaps that’s why she brought it to lunch.
Any encounter with the Queen was peppered with rules. They were sent to you on a piece of paper before you meet.
But it is of course easy to forget those rules when you are in the thick of it all.
For example, there is a rule that the person on your left talks to you for the first course and then switches to their other side for the main course.
At our lunch, the person sitting to my left forgot this, so the Queen stepped in to chat to him, until he realised he had made a mistake.
She passionately wanted everyone to feel comfortable. In my experience, people with power often do not show kindness — but she had it in abundance.
I am left feeling so lucky to feel like I had a personal relationship with the Queen. I am pretty certain that everyone who ever graced the presence of this wonderful woman walked away feeling exactly the same way.
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The Queen united us as a country in a way that we will perhaps only now begin to realise. This week I think we are all giving thanks for the fact that this wonderful monarch reigned over us, happy and glorious, for 70 amazing years.
But, my goodness me, we are going to miss her.