Queen Elizabeth II's reaction to tourists not recognizing her shows another side of her personality
Before she passed away at the age of 96 after an unprecedented 70-year-long rule, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was known for her ability to interact with people be it in light-hearted moments or times of crisis. She was known for a dry sense of humor according to a description by Richard Griffin, the former Royal Protection Officer of the royal family.
During an interview with Sky News, Griffin recalled one incident when the Queen came across two American tourists who did not recognize her, prompting the royal to prank them. She met those American hikers while they were walking around the grounds of Balmoral Castle, the Queen's holiday home in Scotland. "Two hikers were coming towards us and the Queen would always stop and say hello," Griffin reminisced. "And it was clear from the moment we first stopped that they hadn't recognized the Queen."
One of the hikers started talking about where they came from and the parts of Great Britain that they had visited. They even asked the Queen where she lived, to which she said, "Well I live in London, but I've got a holiday home just on the other side of the hills," according to Griffin. When one of them asked, "How often have you been coming up here?" The Queen joked that she had been coming up to the Balmoral Castle for over 80 years and the hikers asked her again if she had ever met Queen Elizabeth II.
"Well I haven't, but Dick here meets her regularly," the Queen replied, referring to Griffin. "Oh, you've met the Queen? What's she like?" the Americans asked Griffin. "Because I was with her a long time and I knew I could pull her leg, I said, 'Oh, she can be very cantankerous at times but she's got a lovely sense of humor,"' Griffin told Sky News. By the end of their short yet warm conversation, the Americans fished out their camera, threw their hand over Griffin's shoulders, and asked the Queen to take a picture.
"Anyway, we swapped places and I took a picture of them with the Queen and we never let on and we waved goodbye," Griffin added. "And Her Majesty said to me, 'I'd love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those photographs to their friends in America — and hopefully someone tells him who I am.'" Apart from tourists, the Queen also played pranks on her grandchildren, and although most of it wasn't caught on camera, one instance was captured. Before moving away from the monarchy with wife Meghan Markle in 2020, as a working member of the royal family, Prince Harry attended some official events and receptions with his grandmother, and some of those were directly connected to his charitable and military duties.
A video from one such event posted by @princess__jo on TikTok showed Harry introducing his grandmother to members of the Walking with the Wounded charity. "I took myself and Prince Harry to the North Pole," a member of the team told the queen, who joked at her grandson's expense saying, "Oh did you? That was brave!" "I shared a tent with him, granny, that was incredibly brave," Harry added cheekily as the monarch burst into laughter.