An ex-royal protection officer has recounted the moment the Queen bumped into two American tourists who somehow didn’t recognise her.
Richard Griffin had accompanied the monarch on a picnic in Balmoral when they encountered the pair, who were on a walking holiday.
‘The Queen would always stop and say hello… it was clear from the moment we first stopped they hadn’t recognised [her]’ he told Sky News.
The American man began telling the royal about his plans for the holiday and what the pair hoped to do next, before asking her where she lived.
Mr Griffin recalled: ‘She said, “Well, I live in London, but I’ve got a holiday home just the other side of the hills”.’
The tourist then asked the Queen how long she had been visiting the area, and she replied she had been doing so for ‘over 80 years, since [she] was a little girl’.
‘Well, if you’ve been coming up for 80 years, you must have met the Queen?’ he had asked, none the wiser.