Before London completely disappears in my rear-view mirror, I’d like to share the story of my personal encounter with the Royals. (to be sure, the Royal family is so large, have been around for so long and get around so much, it’s actually more unusual to not have a story of your own)
Sometime November of every year, the Palace holds an evening reception for the London diplomatic community. Early on during my UK posting, I was lucky enough to be invited to the event.
excuse me..."commanded"
Around three members of each Embassy get invited, so there are literally hundreds of diplomats in attendance. Buckingham, of course, is large enough to comfortably accommodate that many people, and the Queen is famous for wanting to meet and chat with as many guests as possible (she’s cool like that).
The invitations state where you’re supposed to go for your food and where you’re supposed to go afterwards for cocktails and to see the Family. Non-Ambassadors like moi are to proceed to a grand banquet hall for dinner, and then to one of a dozen or so state rooms and wait for the Royals to arrive.
The invitations also give that most important of details: attire -- Formal or National Dress. Now, it may be a cold night in November, but there's no way the Philippine delegation won't be rockin’ its finest airy piña. We also received a tip that several Royals in fact recognize and appreciate the barong in person.
the only question then was: pang-kasal, o pang binyag?
Event night arrived. My companion and I headed to Buckingham, walked the mile-long and sky-high hallways, and reached the grand banquet hall to have our dinner. The spread was so lavish, I don’t even remember any of the individual items served anymore, other than there were a lot of them (and that, sadly, there were no arrangements for pa-balot)
After the meal, everyone headed over to their specified state room, so that there were maybe 50 diplomats to a room. During the course of the evening, we had been informed that when it was time for the Queen and her family to make their way through the rooms, guests could casually stand on either side of the pathway and greet them as they walked by. Every so often, we were also told, any one of the Family might stop and chat with some of the guests along the line – either because they were prompted to do so by an accompanying senior British official, or because they saw a familiar face, or simply because something caught their Royal eye.
So everyone in our room just informally stood around and waited for a while, with no idea when the Royals were due to pass by. Then, a sort of gasp-hush-murmur combo came over the room, as a door – which no one even knew was a door, it looked like a large ornate wall panel – opened, and out walked Her Majesty. The people just naturally stepped aside and divided themselves on either side of the room, like a human parting of the Red Sea. My companion and I found ourselves at the tail-end of the line on the right. We could see the Queen ever so gracefully walking down the cleared path, looking around and acknowledging everyone and, true enough, stopping every once in a while to talk to someone.
Including us.
To be honest, it was all just a blur in my head from that point. I sorta still have memories of Her Majesty coming right up to me and asking something along the lines of “I trust you are well.” I also sort of remember answering something along the lines of “Yeshjptegrcrvrthhdf…..” (I was later assured this was quite a common response under the circumstances)
And just like that, the Queen moved on.
But wait, there’s more.
Several steps behind Her Majesty were other members of the Royal Family who were still making their way down the two lines of people, criss-crossing from one side to the other. Suddenly from across the path, one of the family members – I won’t say who, but let’s just say has easy to google gaffes – came to an abrupt stop, pointed directly at my companion and me, and cried out “I know who you are! I know what you're wearing!”
The Royal marched straight up to us, and then began to touch – nay, fondle! – the sleeves of our barongs.
“Tell me”, the Royal asks, “Do all of you have your own shirts like these…or do you just pass the same ones among yourselves?”
And just like that, the Royal moved on.
but just for the record, Your Highness . . .
