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Cape Town – Queen Elizabeth's got a wicked sense of humour.
The 93-year-old monarch, in between running the United Kingdom and all 16 Commonwealth realms, takes the opportunity whenever she can to have a little fun. And Her Majesty's former protection officer recalls a time when Queen Elizabeth basically pretended not to be Queen Elizabeth on a stroll in Balmoral.
Richard Griffin told The Times of the incident that saw the queen on a walk through the grounds of the castle when tourists spotted her. But according to Independent, the passersby didn't react, instead, not knowing who she was they asked if she lived in the area. She said she had a house close-by.
"Have you ever met the Queen?" they asked the woman in a tweed coat and a headscarf.
"No. But he has," she said, pointing to Richard.
The tourists went back to America, never knowing who they'd just met, and Queen Elizabeth went back to Windsor Castle to add trained, covert spy to her title.
But this isn't the first time the queen went incognito. According to INSIDER, In 1945, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret joined crowds on the streets as they celebrated the end of World War II.
The queen said of the evening that was one of the most memorable of her life, "I remember lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief."
Elizabeth and Margaret's antics was later turned into a film appropriately titled, A Royal Night Out.
After speaking to a former equerry, royal author Adam Heliker writes about how Queen Elizabeth really feels about her title making it difficult for her to ever blend in.
"One summer day she asked me to join her on a walk at Balmoral," the RAF officer recalled. "She talked about how irritating it was to go into a party and as she put it, watch people peel away, like the water parting as the bow of a ship ploughed through it. She said she always felt it would be lovely to just slip into a party, wandering around incognito, talking to anyone she felt like."
Well, it may not always be the case, but it seems Queen Elizabeth's had the opportunity to do just that at different times throughout her life.
Maybe it's the dookie and shades. Maybe it's her ninja skills.
