I never met the queen and to the best of my recollection have only met one person who had.
At the time I was working for what is now the DWP where I was doing home visits. This particular visit was a 'centenarian visit', the purpose of which was to confirm that the person concerned was alive, well, going to be 100 (or 105+) and able to appreciate getting a birthday greeting from her maj.
This was to avoid any embarrassment to the palace, any such embarrassment to my good self in asking such questions apparently not being worthy of consideration.
Normally the biggest problem with these visits was diplomatically explaining to forelock tugging coffin dodgers that the queen was not omniscient, and someone had to tell her staff when to send the birthday card which she herself would never have been near or far less have personally signed.
On this occasion the impending centenarian was sharp as a tack and still lived alone, with only a little help from a great-niece.
She told me in no uncertain terms that she didn't want a telegram and wanted nothing to do with the queen.
I said this was fair enough, but as I might get a hard time about it could she tell me why?
She explained that she had met the queen once due to involvement with local charitable organisations.
She had been instructed in advance on how to curtsey when meeting the royal personage.
But what threw her was the queen not even looking at her, and despite her wearing white gloves had barely touched her hand and treated her 'as if she was a piece of dirt.'
She said that until this happened she was a fan of the royals but afterwards wanted nothing to do with them.
I duly filed my report. I had to field calls from the office manager, the district manager, the lord lieutenant of Berwickshire et al all demanding to know why this woman wasn't going to get a telegram.
She phoned me four days before her birthday to tell me that the pressure from her family and others was unbearable, so please just get the bloody thing sent to her anyway.
She phoned me again a month later to apologise for the bother that she'd caused and to say that she had got the card, but after the fuss had died down had chucked it in the bin.
