On Wednesday evening, Elizabeth, Queen of Scots, will become our longest-serving monarch, overtaking Queen Victoria’s record of 63 years and seven months.
Suitably enough, our record-breaking Queen will be on the way home to the Balmoral Estate established as a royal residence by Queen Victoria, having performed the official opening of the Borders Railway, the longest new railway built in this country for a century.
In an unparalleled record of service, the Queen has been counselled by a round dozen Prime Ministers (11 men and one woman) and full five First Ministers (four men and one woman).
Each of these ministers will have been as impressed as I was by the Queen’s knowledge and insight into current affairs. In recent times they will have been very conscious that a lady, whose first Prime Minister was Winston Churchill, has acquired a level of experience and perspective that no here-today-gone-tomorrow politician could hope to match.
Conversations and audiences correctly enough stay private however, here are two short insights for Courier readers.
One, no one who knows anything about the Queen believes that she ever “purrs” down the phone.
Two, in my very last meeting as First Minister with the Queen she gently suggested that one of her horses, a two-year-old called Mustard, had a good chance at Haydock the following weekend. It duly reigned supreme at 3-1.
I think I can safely say that this is one royal command that not one of her many other ministers were ever privileged to receive!