The former British prime minister said the audience with Queen Elizabeth was both “a tutorial and a confessional, with a bit of unpaid psychotherapy.”
Queen Elizabeth was known as prim and proper, but she was not above a good joke.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recalled the time he spent with the late monarch in an article for Daily mail as the first anniversary of her death approaches next week. Johnson was the 14th Prime Minister of Queen Elizabeth’s historic 70-year reign, and the Queen’s last public duty before her death was to officially appoint Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister after Johnson stepped down.
Johnson wrote: “Because of her humanity and likability you felt, as Prime Minister, that you could really open up to her, tell her absolutely anything, so the audience was a mix between lecture and confessional, with a bit of unpaid psychotherapy thrown in.”
“I told her once that I had a nightmare that I was late for her and the Duke’s,” he continued, referring to the Queen’s husband Prince Philip, known by his title as the Duke of Edinburgh. ” ‘Oh yes,’ she beamed, and I could tell she’d heard this before, probably from other prime ministers. ‘Were you naked?’ she asked as it turned out to be a common feature of such dreams.”
Queen Elizabeth 2021 Oli Scarff/WPA Pool/Getty Queen Elizabeth tells photographers to move in hilarious leaked video: ‘Do you mind?’
The Queen is “a lot more alive in private than the public sees,” royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, author Queen Elizabeth: The Life of a Modern Monarchhe previously told PEOPLE.
The author quoted a source from the Queen’s Sandringham estate who once said: ” ‘You can hear her laughing all over that big house.’ She laughs a lot!”
Remembering his grandmother after her death, Prince Harry said in a statement: “I miss her very much, as well as her cheeky sense of humor and quick wit.”
Johnson recalled how Queen Elizabeth allowed him to practice in the gardens of Buckingham Palace while he was recovering from illness and said she had quite an impressive range of knowledge.
“One day we were struggling with the topic of Zambia and I was trying to remember the late president’s name. ‘Kenneth Kaunda’, she said immediately,” he said. “Another time we were talking about the last English monarch to lead his troops into battle. I remembered the king – George II – but I couldn’t remember the battle. ‘Dettingen,’ she said, like the winner of a pub quiz.”
Johnson also recalled the “surreal experience” of visiting Balmoral, the royal residence in Scotland where Queen Elizabeth spent the summer months.
“All her prime ministers have had the surreal experience of going to Balmoral and watching Britain’s longest-serving monarch prepare her special vinaigrette,” he wrote. “We accepted the sausages grilled by the Duke of Edinburgh from her hand and tried to help her pack them all into her special Tupperware boxes. I expect every Prime Minister was quite nervous on arrival.”
He added: “The first night we found a note on the bed for Carrie. ‘Ma’am,’ it said obligingly, ‘Her Majesty will be wearing an ice blue cocktail dress to dinner tonight.’ I don’t think Carrie packed anything like an icy blue cocktail dress, but it was useful information.”
Queen Elizabeth’s confidant and friend Angela Kelly previously discussed in her book why she shared the monarch’s choice of clothing with other guests, The other side of the coin: the queen, the dresser and the wardrobe.
“After Her Majesty chooses her dinner dress, a handwritten notice is posted in the cloakroom hallway detailing what she will be wearing, so that the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting can choose the appropriate dress for the lady in their care.” she wrote. “When it comes to the royal family, it doesn’t matter if they wear the same color as the queen because they are family, and sometimes the ladies will wear cocktail dresses even though the queen might be wearing rainbow.”
She continued, “The other guests, however, feel that they should not be of the same color as Her Majesty, although the Queen would not mind if that happened.”
Queen Elizabeth and the prime ministers of her 70-year reign — from Winston Churchill to Liz Truss
Johnson’s article noted that Queen Elizabeth had a great gift: “She could make you feel—whatever you were telling her—that you were really quite special and interesting; and then flash that beautiful smile.”
“When you were with her, you could see why the elder Churchill was so in love with her. You could see why Barack Obama was so mesmerized that he stayed up drinking with her so late, they say, that the footmen had to come and cough to indicate that the evening is coming to an end,” said the former prime minister. “You sensed that although she had seen it all, knew it all, she also enjoyed and appreciated politics in all its intricacy and absurdity.”
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King Charles and Queen Camilla are expected to spend the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s death on September 8 quietly and privately, as the late monarch was wont to do on her Throne Day.
Westminster Abbey, where the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and her eldest son took place, will ring its bells on Friday in honor of Charles’ coronation, according to the abbey. In another tribute, a platoon of 21 guns will be fired in London’s Royal Parks in honor of King Charles Day, according to the royal family’s website.
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Source: HIS Education