MY MEMORY gropes back to the first occasion on which I met the Queen . . .
It occurs to me that she was a shining mark compared with the whole camorra of celebrities, professional politicians and more that my privileged upbringing had exposed me to (my father was a member of the House of Lords and chairman of the Horserace Totalisator Board, now the Tote).
The Queen looking radiant in an official 1992 portrait
Her Majesty taking a photo of Prince Philip at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 1982
It was the late 1980s, at a race meeting at Sandown Park, Surrey, and the Queen had a horse running.
I remember it being a cold day, with a thin afterglow of winter sunshine.
An hour before the Queen’s arrival, my father had presented me to her sister Princess Margaret.
As an introduction to royalty it was palpably uneasy. With the over-enthusiasm of youth (I was 16), I had applied a thick veneer of maquillage.
The Princess, who had gun-metal eyes, dismissed me in a voice scary with sarcasm: “Did you mean to look 35?”
When the Queen entered, I was intolerably nervous, having wiped off my lipstick with a sleeve.
She was with one of her ladies in waiting. I was immediately struck by her appearance.
Despite the chill, she wore a lightweight coat and her complexion showed no signs of being affected by the elements.
It was apple white, with touches of peony, and almost unlined.
Aside from her hair — its darkness leavened by sprinklings of grey — she looked very similar to photographs taken at the time of her Coronation.
As my father led me to where she was standing, smaller than I but as erect as the Parthenon in her tan mid-heeled shoes, I could smell her perfume, fresh like the first honeysuckle of summer.
Her face was round but compact and her eyes, almost violet in hue, were like laser lights.
There was a fineness to her hands, which grasped mine with dry warmth as I rose from my curtsy.
Her smile was curiously girlish and utterly disarming.
Many years before, I had met Pope John Paul II.
He had seen much pain and even death, yet lived with an innocence inside him. Not a child. But something clean and pure.
That same quality was evident in Queen Elizabeth.
She had witnessed great suffering, during the war, on tours of the Commonwealth, and she had suffered herself. God, she had suffered.
She had lost a beloved father to cancer and, at the same grim hour, the responsibilities of the nation had been placed on her 25-year-old shoulders.
We shall not see her like again, just as we will not see the like of Joan of Arc, Shakespeare or Churchill.
Her mores were those of a different, some would say less selfish, age.
My father had known her Private Secretary Michael Adeane, who said of Elizabeth II: “It was quite remarkable when she became Queen after the King died.
“She never once thought of herself. The Queen Mother did, and so did Princess Margaret, but this young woman was extraordinary.
“People talk of how, in those days, there was more of a sense of duty. But this was something apart.
“In some ways, she was a freak. Utterly composed and dry-eyed — looking forward, with an extraordinary determination not to let anyone down.”
The acting one sees in films or on the stage does not show how human beings of elevated status and nobility of character actually comport themselves, but how actors think they ought to.
It is a device for entertaining an audience but it is palpably false.
Even Dame Helen Mirren, Claire Foy and Olivia Colman, to name some of the distinguished thespians who have portrayed Elizabeth II, have been hams, the real thing reduced to a mere absurdity.
The thing about the Queen — the special magic — was not that she was regal, though she was, nor that she put me at my ease, which she did, but that she was so completely herself.
And yes, that was freakish. On that January afternoon, there was nothing false or studied in the woman who stood before me and it seemed, even to my young eyes, that she had remained constant to this self-possession all her life.
And in being so, she was as timeless and fresh as cucumber sandwiches or strawberries and cream.
I later remarked on this to her lady-in-waiting, who said: “Her Majesty never changes.
“She isn’t what one would call fashionable in her approach. She adapts, but the essence remains the same. That is her greatest strength.
“You always know what you are getting.”
When I asked her to expand on this, she paused before considering.
“What people fail to realise is that she has the most marvellous sense of humour. She likes nothing better than a good gossip, but it’s never malicious.
“She has no pomposity and never sits in judgment. This has enabled her to weather anything.”
If Elizabeth II had been a brand, which in a way she was, it was the most successful brand in history.
Unlike the average celebrity, politician or even other famous royals, including Princess Diana and the shriekingly chic Margaret, she transcended the evanescence of fashion, and in doing so never went out of style.
She was a perfected presence but she wasn’t a statue cast in bronze.
She could sneeze and be human like the rest of us.
If kindness is rare in the privileged, as rare as a flawless emerald, she was that jewel.
Noticing I had no binoculars, she offered me hers so I could get a better view of the next race.
In my nervous enthusiasm, I managed to catch hold of them while they were still around her neck.
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She began to cough and for an awful moment I thought I was strangling her.
Finally, she gave a sort of amused snort, before remarking wryly: “You must have a great enthusiasm for horses. Perhaps it would be safer if we had a cup of tea.”
The Queen at the races with Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Philip in 1986
