Written 12/24/11
For the years 1970 - 1973, I taught evening classes at Birkbeck College, University of London, right behind the British Museum. One night, just as I was walking out with a couple of students after class, we saw some young men in strange outfits brandishing swords on the sidewalk outside the college. We cautiously stopped to see what was happening.
Suddenly this HUGE limousine drove up. It was covered with shiny things and flags. The young men quickly formed themselves into a walkway, with swords held up like a canopy over the walkway, leading up to the entrance to the college. Two elaborately uniformed chauffeurs got out of the limo and opened the back door. Out stepped the Queen Mother.
Yes, the Queen Mother. She was wearing a long, blue, evening gown, with long gloves, and she had on gobs of diamonds and jewels with some even in her elegant coiffure. The students and I were standing there open-mouthed in our trousers and sweaters, when she very graciously came up to me, took my hand in hers, and said in that aristocratic British way, “Thank you so much for coming.” She did the same to the two students before gliding under the swords and into the college.
I was so impressed with her kindness and felt so special to have gotten to meet her like that. Just now I checked her on Wikipedia and found this sentence: “She charmed the public in Fiji when shaking hands with a long line of official guests, as a stray dog walked in on the ceremony and she shook its paw as well.” Oh, well, it’s still a special memory.
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