During my career as a television journalist I’ve been privileged to meet the Queen on many occasions and it has often struck me that, behind her formal public persona, she is kind and thoughtful on a very practical level. I remember talking to her in 2007 in Uganda, where she had come to meet the Commonwealth Heads Of Government, and she told me she had arrived at Kampala airport just as daylight had given way to impenetrable darkness. Night falls like a curtain in the tropics. There is no dusk. And as she was driven out of the airport, Her Majesty peered into the blackness of the African night to see the route lined with shadowy forms waving flags.
‘I suddenly realised that all these people had taken the trouble to come and greet me, so I put the light on in the car so I could wave back,’ she told me. These small acts of consideration typify her. We know the Queen has huge affection for the Commonwealth – she regards herself as head of a family of nations. But less well-documented is the almost maternal sense of hospitality she invests in the role.
. I personally love reading these types of stories. They give us a glimpse of Her Majesty that we won't otherwise get. The gesture of putting the light on, so that she could wave to the crowd who came out in the darkness of the night just to greet her speaks volumes to me. This is a woman who has a big, kind and compassionate disposition. United Kingdom should be proud to call her their Queen.
