There’s really no point to this little story, other than it makes me happy, and I hope it will make you happy, too.

Around the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, one of her longtime protection officers, Richard Griffin, was asked by reporters for examples of her wit and her charm, and he told this story.

Whenever the Queen was visiting Balmoral, the British Royal Family’s historic estate in Scotland, she often enjoyed going for a picnic and a walk—often just her and her protection officer.

One day, during a walk after a picnic, the Queen and her officer encountered two American hikers on the path. They stopped to say hello to the pair, and immediately realized that the tourists didn’t recognize the Queen.

They all struck up a conversation, and one of the hikers asked the Queen where she lived. She answered, “I live in London, but I’ve got a holiday home just the other side of the hills.” He asked how long she’d been coming up, and she replied, “Oh, I’ve been coming up here ever since I was a little girl, so over eighty years.”

So of course you can guess what the tourist asks next!

He said, “If you’ve been coming up here for eighty years, you must have met the Queen.”

And without breaking a beat, the Queen said, “Well, I haven’t, but Dick here meets her regularly.”

So the tourist turns to the officer to ask, “What’s she like?”

Now, this officer, Richard Griffin, had known the Queen a very long time, so he knew he could have some fun with his answer. He replied, “Oh, she can be very cantankerous at times, but she’s got a lovely sense of humor.”

In a flash, the tourist moved to stand next to the officer, handed his camera to the Queen, and asked, “Can you take a picture of the two of us?” She did, and then they swapped places, and Richard Griffin took a picture of the tourists with the Queen.

After they’d left, the Queen said to him, “I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those photographs to friends in America, and hopefully, someone tells him who I am.”

I laugh whenever I think of those hikers coming back home—and someone telling them the name of the nice woman in the photo.