Taking coffee with the Queen, and other memories

Saturday 10 September 2022

Recollections of the visits made by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to the Bailiwick stretch back to 1949, with the sense of occasion from that first visit still colouring the memories of those who saw her.

Accompanied by her husband to whom she had been married for just two years, Princess Elizabeth spent time in Alderney, Sark and Guernsey during that first visit to the Channel Islands.

Coming so soon after the end of the Second World War and with the Occupation still very recent, the Royal couple were welcomed by large crowds everywhere they went.

Among the crowds was a seven-year-old boy called Reg Guille, who waited at the Maseline Harbour in Sark to see the future Monarch. 

Mr Guille later served his country in the army, before serving Sark as a deputy, then Seneschal and most recently as Speaker of Chief Pleas. He told Express he has some memories of the overriding atmosphere of that day in 1949, when Sark’s new Harbour was officially opened.

Pictured: Reg Guille saw, and met, the Queen on a number of occasions. 

“I don’t remember her as such, but I do remember the day, because we were all down at the harbour, waving flags. It was just after the war. The thing that impressed most of us youngsters was that she came on HMS Vanguard, the battleship, which anchored off Sark so you could see the battleship and she came ashore on a motor launch from the battleship. That’s about the only thing I remember from her first visit to Sark which was as Princess Elizabeth.

“She was in a way playing second fiddle to Philip on that occasion, because it was actually him who unveiled the plaque on the harbour not her. If you look on the plaque it was unveiled by him not by the Princess.”

A few photos of that visit are in the possession of the Seigneur of Sark, Christopher Beaumont. His great-grandmother Dame Sybil Hathaway hosted the Princess and her husband during that first visit to the island. 

Mr Guille’s memories of the day align with the photographs in the family album which Major Beaumont shared with Express.

Pictured: This album is held at the Sark Seigneurie and contains photos of all Royal visits over the last century.

“It was the ship, the waving, the occasion, but the thing that stands out was the battleship,” recalls Mr Guille. 

He told Express that he was lucky enough to see Her Majesty from a distance again, whilst he was serving in the army, but later in his life Mr Guille met Queen Elizabeth II on two occasions which gave him an insight into how she worked as Monarch.

In 1986, he received his MBE for his service in the military. During March of that year he attended his investiture at Buckingham Palace, which he described as “fantastic”.

“You are alone with her, in a room full of people. She’s right in front of you, she’s on a little step so she’s a bit higher, and then you stand, she talks to you.

"I can’t remember what we spoke about, but she talked to everybody for at least one to two minutes, so you’re there looking her in the eye, talking to her and then at the end of it she puts her hand out, and you take it, very limply because you don’t want to crush her hand and at the end of the audience, she keeps talking to you while she’s holding your hand and then she pushes your hand away and that is your signal to step back, bow, and leave the room.

Pictured: The Sark Seigneurie has hosted visits by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and other royals.

“It’s just a fantastic occasion. I wish I had a photographic memory but the enormity of the day just takes over and then there are photographs afterwards with the family and the whole day is just a fantastic occasion.”

His own investiture was followed more than a decade later by that of the then-Seigneur of Sark, Michael Beaumont, which was held in Sark, with Mr Guille asked to read the Loyal Address.

That Toast, and Her Majesty’s response are both framed and on display inside Sark’s parliamentary building, Chief Pleas.

During the Seigneur’s investiture, Mr Guille was left alone inside La Seigneurie for a few moments with Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, as the scene was set outside.

“It was just the three of us, nobody else, and that was fantastic,” remembers Mr Guille.

Pictured: The Loyal Address and Her Majesty's Response, framed and displayed in Chief Pleas.

“We were waiting for them all to get organised outside, because everybody had watched the Queen come down to La Seigneurie and we had a big seating area for the people, and we had seating arranged for her and Prince Philip for the investiture part of it and I was to escort them out of the house.

"Once they’d freshened up everyone else left to go and take their seats outside and I was on the staircase, just one step up behind them, just listening to the two of them chattering to each other.

“The wait seemed to go on for a very long time and they were chattering, and Philip said ‘let’s open the door, that will make them sit down’, and she just looked at him, and said nothing. They carried on talking and we carried on waiting, and he said it again. She just said ‘be quiet, Philip’. 

“Then the door opened, one of her equerries opened the door so the Queen, followed by the Duke, followed by me, all went out. They took their seats and when they were settled, I read the loyal address to Her Majesty. I wrapped the scroll up and handed it to her, she then made her reply and then I went and took my seat while we watched the investiture.”

Pictured: Mr Guille at Chief Pleas, with one of the chairs Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh used during their 2001 visit to Sark.

Major Beaumont was at his father’s investiture with his wife and their two children. He had been helping with the visit, escorting the entourage from the Medical Centre which Her Majesty opened, to La Seigneurie.

“They came here for coffee. So coffee was served in the drawing room and we had taught the children to curtsey and bow, which Sybil managed without any difficulty at all. Hugh decided that bowing meant doubling over so it wasn’t just a nod, and I was quite convinced he was going to polish Prince Philip’s shoes with his hair because he got that low. 

“I like to embarrass him about that every time I get the opportunity,” laughed the Seigneur. 

As well as his own children, Major Beaumont recalls Sark school children being at the investiture in the grounds of La Seigneurie with hand bells being rung. 

“Generally, they were a very happy Royal couple,” he remembered.

Like other guests, Her Majesty had signed the private visitors’ book kept at La Seigneurie which Major Beaumont said was the only record of her private time spent there, until it went missing. 

“We don’t have any record of her actually inside the house. There weren’t any photographs taken. We were busy so we weren’t taking photographs and we sell this as a bit of private space. It’s a breather so she knows, they know, if they’re inside the house there won’t be anyone around.”