Originally posted Oct 8, 2020, this article reappears in memory of the late Philip Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, born June 10, 1921, whose death was announced this morning by Buckingham Palace.

I think each of us harbors an image of British royalty, seeded from books, movies and television, which pretty much arrives at the same point: these descendants of Kings and Queens are, by and large, a pretty stiff lot. What with decorum, history, etiquette and simply plain good breeding, Queen Elizabeth and her family, at least in public anyway, reflect refined, controlled good taste.  Yes, I know about the exceptions. Even so, we tend to see them as cardboard figures, performing on the world stage like actors in Japanese Kabuki theater.  It is not often, but every once in a while that someone gets a glimpse behind the scenes, to discover the real people beneath the Crown and behind the medals.  And this, my story, is one of them.

By Brian Nelson

Chapter One: I found myself late on the afternoon of July 5th, 1976, sitting in a cramped hotel meeting room in Philadelphia.  World media had arrived, drawn to the spectacle of a British Monarch about to tour a few of her former colonies on the 200^th anniversary of having lost them, an event otherwise known as the 1976 Bicentennial Royal Tour. 

The next morning, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip would arrive aboard the Britannia and smile their way through this historical second chapter to the 200^th American Independence Day celebrations which wound down two days earlier.  Royal Tour highlights would include visits to the Liberty Bell in Philly, a glittering state dinner at the White House hosted by President Gerald Ford, a drop-in at Jefferson’s home in Monticello, a triumphant parade down Wall Street in New York, and a return to the scene of the crime, the tea port city of Boston.

By profession, each of us in the room that afternoon would be allotted a large lettered, color-coded identity pass.  There was the aptly named “A” team, signifying the photographers and cameramen responsible for promising a splash on newspaper front pages and television worldwide. Next came print reporters, an almost equally important “B” team, who were trailed by the media riffraff, of which I, as a national Canadian radio correspondent, was one.

“At 8am”, said the practiced Royal Briefer, “her Majesty and Prince Philip will descend the gangplank of the Britannia, and Group A, that’s you TV cameramen and photogs, will be to the right of the ramp. Group B, print reporters, will be to the left. You in the C Group (he seemed to sniff) will be watching from the back.” 

At the briefing’s 45-minute mark, instructions and questions having mercifully dried up, notebooks began closing as this weary group turned its focus to the downstairs bar.

Suddenly, there comes a loud “harrumph” from the back. That was followed by a painfully drawn out, “excuuuuse me ….”

Everyone sank back into their seats, dejected. 

“Can someone tell us … puleeease…” continued “the voice” in clipped, precise British English.

“… is her Majesty … a textual deviant?”

Now, the acoustics in these meeting rooms are not the best.  So, you can guess what everyone thought they heard. 

“Did this twit just say …?” 

The ensuing silence was deafening.  You could have heard a pin drop. Breathtaking, really. Suddenly the bar looked a long way off. 

An eternity later, “the voice”, in a burst of awareness, hastened to resume.  “I mean, ahem, does her Majesty STRAAYY from her text”.

Relief at the clarification caused the room to erupt in hysteria. We had luckily dodged a bullet. The Queen was not being accused of deviant sexual behavior after all. In fact, the reporter wanted to ensure that Her Majesty would stick to her text and not ad-lib the next day. Knowing that answer to that question helped both lazy and enterprising reporters. The lazy ones could confidently write from the advance copy of her remarks and then go for a walk, or to a bar. Enterprising reporters might spend the added time after writing their story to get out on the street and seek some local “color” from royalty’s adoring fans.   

Anyway, the pros, knowing the Queen was not an ad-libber, were already bar-bound.

Chapter 2: With that lead-in, the Main Act of this drama, came days later. 

As is longtime custom, royal tours provide an opportunity for the Queen to mingle with the host country’s ink-stained wretches covering her visits.  This one took the form of a cocktail party aboard the royal yacht Britannia.  The “wretches” are offered a rare opportunity to fake nobility with their rented, borrowed or bought formal-wear, and mingle with actual real royalty. 

The press pool on the invitation list assembled at the foot of Britannia’s gangplank and was invited up and ushered into a large ballroom occupying a good part of the center of the ship.  While fidgeting uneasily, we looked around. Our eyes were drawn to a giant crystal chandelier dominating the room, and then to the presence of two bars.  Someone knew something about reporters.

A door abruptly opened down at the far corner of the room and in walked British royalty: Queen Elizabeth, graceful in royal attire, Prince Philip in full military dress, minus the sword.  As they made their way into the room, the Prince vectored to the nearest populated bar, while the Queen of England wandered in other direction, down my way, right into a gaggle of fellow scribes, where she launched into a practiced routine of “meet and greet”. 

I lingered off to the side of the group, nervous as hell. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and I did not want to miss it.  So, I inched my way over little by little, trying not to be obvious in my effort to pick up the conversation. In the 4-5 minutes it took me and a colleague to pull alongside, the conversation had come to a stalemate.   My press buddies were tongue-tied in front of the Queen of England.

Now, this is a group accustomed to interviewing the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers about matters of state. But THE QUEEN? No one handed us talking points.

For some unknown reason, I stupidly felt obliged to save the moment. So, as gallantly as I could, I caught the Queen’s eye and introduced myself, and asked her if any of my colleagues had yet told her of the funny story two nights earlier at the logistics briefing. 

“No, I don’t believe so”, came the somewhat clipped response. 

And so, I bravely launched into telling this great tale, warming as I went until I reached the great punch line.

“And she asked”, I recounted from the briefing, “‘… is her Majesty a textual deviant?’” 

Now, the acoustics here, one-to-one, were much better than in that hotel room.  The Queen took an immediate, barely perceptible breath and raised a barely perceptible eyebrow.  And I thought, “so this is how controlled royal stock reacts to even hints of deviance? 

Then I quickly leaped in, as had the reporter in the briefing, to explain the “textual” nature of the Queen’s remarks and why the reporter wanted to know, in a tone of “aren’t we just crazy?”

At that moment, her Majesty gave just the slightest of smiles, and muttered quietly something like, “Oh my”.  Her Majesty was amused, but just mildly.

And that was it.  The moment diffused, swished down the memory hole. I was a bit disappointed by the response, hoping to encourage cocktail chatter and save the day. But also relieved my initiative wasn’t taken as undignified. The Queen soon moved on to join another group, and I headed down to the other end of the room to see Prince Philip.

As we know, the Prince is as tall as the Queen is short, a handsome man with a patrician bearing.  But in private, around a bar like this, Philip proved he was, shall I say, “one of the boys”, a guy quite comfortable in the sublime art of mindless cocktail chatter.  I bided my time as the conversation swung back and forth until I found an opening. 

“Your Highness”, I said, hoping to strike gold on my second attempt, “have any of my colleagues shared the story of this strange briefing we had before your arrival?”

“No, I don’t believe so”, came the interested response.

And so, I launched into Take Two of the Royal Briefing “debrief”. Only this time, I hit pay dirt.  When I landed on the climactic phrase “textual deviant”, Prince Philip reacted in a most natural way … definitely as one of the guys. His eyes shot wide open. He waited. He gazed at me with this pleading look that said, “Come on, come on, gimme the punch line!!!”

I waited a beat before delivering the questioner’s clarifying line.

“I mean”, I again recounted, “… does Her Majesty STRAY from her text?”

The drink in the Prince’s hand shook hard and spilled as he literally doubled up in laughter. The Queen of England as Deviant. Imagine! He was honestly and thoroughly amused and it took him a while to stop laughing. I was pleased and surprised at this unvarnished reaction, and later marveled at the Royal Couple’s dissimilar reactions to the same story. It was pretty clear Philip now had a great new dinner tale both to entertain guests and to tweak the Queen in private.  And something told me he had plans to use it soon and often.

Chapter 3: Days later in Montreal, the Royals were the star attractions at a star-studded gala on the eve of opening ceremonies of the 1976 Montreal Olympics.  The venue was the beautiful Place Des Arts, the city’s version of The Kennedy Center, and it was filled by invitation only. Wealthy and politically connected Canadians were assigned spots along the arrival rope line into the hall, awarded the chance to tell their neighbors and friends how they said hello or chatted with the Queen. 

I decided, with tape recorder running, I would protectively follow them from a vantage point behind the crowd. The Prince was on my side of the rope line, so it was easy to track his tall head as the couple progressed through the well-wishers. Suddenly, Prince Philip looked up across the heads in front of him.  I looked up at the same time. And I realized he was looking directly at me.   He seemed momentarily puzzled, as if trying to lock in the connection to a familiar face. And then he pointed his finger at me and yelled loudly above the hub-bub: “You …  you … you TEXTUAL DEVIANT, you!” And laughing and sporting a wide grin, he followed the Queen into the hall.

Yes, the Prince had a brand-new story to tell, and so did I.