Theresa May has paid tribute to the Queen with an anecdote about how she once dropped some cheese in the Monarch’s presence.
The former prime minister recounted how she attended a picnic with the late head of state in the sprawling grounds of her Scottish residence Balmoral.
“Her Majesty loved the countryside, and she was down to earth and a woman of common sense,” she told MPs in the House of Commons.
“I remember one picnic at Balmoral, which was taking place in one of the bothies on the estate. The hampers came from the castle, and we all mucked in to put the food and drink out on the table.
“I picked up some cheese, put it on a plate and was transferring it to the table. The cheese fell on the floor. I had a split-second decision to make.”
Pausing as other MPs in the chamber burst into laughter, the ex-prime minister added: “I picked up the cheese, put it on the plate and put it on the table. I turned round to see that my every move had been watched very carefully by Her Majesty the Queen.
“I looked at her. She looked at me and she just smiled. And the cheese remained on the table.”
In a glowing tribute Ms May said the Queen was “quite simply the most remarkable person I have ever met”.
“Across the nations of the world, for so many people, meeting Queen Elizabeth simply made their day and for many will be the memory of their life,” she said.
“Of course, for those of us who had the honour to serve as one of her prime ministers, those meetings were more frequent with the weekly audiences.
“These were not meetings with a high and mighty monarch, but a conversation with a woman of experience and knowledge and immense wisdom. They were also the one meeting I went to, which I knew it would not be briefed out to the media.”
MPs are paying tribute to the late Monarch in the Commons on Friday, with dedications expected to go on well into the evening, before resuming in a rare Saturday sitting.
