For Australian Samantha Cohen, Queen Elizabeth II was not only THE Queen but also her boss. As a trusted aide, Samantha worked as the monarch’s assistant private secretary for 18 years. She recently shared some of her favourite memories since the Queen died in 2022.
In an interview with The Sunday Times published on October 12, Samantha Cohen opened up about the late Queen’s “shy” but “playful” nature.
She remembers her as someone who ‘wanted to be a family woman’. “It was important to her. She loved hosting everybody for summer, allocating the rooms and checking them herself,” Cohen said.
Also surprising is Samantha’s memory of the Queen’s courage, and speedy driving habits, zipping around Balmoral.
It’s a well-known fact that the monarch also loved riding her horses. She would sometimes come across Samantha’s children as she rode. “Some mornings, I’d be getting the cereal for breakfast, and the kids would go, ‘Mum! The Queen just rode past on her horse,” she recalls. “Other times, they’d bump into her on their bicycles. The Queen loved families having a nice time and hearing what everyone was doing,” she told the Sunday Times.
Cohen describes the Queen as remarkably kind. “They made us feel so welcome, very much a part of their lives,” she added. “We would all receive Christmas presents, each with handwritten tags.”
And her “playful” nature extended beyond her hobbies. Recalling one of her favourite memories of Queen Elizabeth, which occurred as she went to see Her Majesty in the drawing room of her Scottish castle, Cohen said, “She was always sitting at her desk next to the window, going through the work that had come in that morning.”
On this day, a butterfly entered through one of the windows by accident and was sitting on a book. “We wanted to rescue it by getting it out,” Cohen said. “Her Majesty got up, picked it up, and it flew away. Then I caught it, and it flew out of my hands. Then she caught it. It was hilarious; she was laughing, I was laughing, eventually, she caught it, we opened the window, freed the butterfly, and she said, ‘Right, where were we?’”
According to the Sunday Times, Samantha Cohen transitioned from working for the Queen to working for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018, where she continued as their private secretary until 2019.
Source: dailymail.co.uk