Queen Elizabeth II tongue-in-cheek joke before her death, Digi Mart USA News (Balmoral, Scotland): Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022 after 70 years on the throne, and in the weeks before her death she still met a small number of people at Balmoral Castle. Scott Cox, MVO, who was then a Royal Guard Sergeant Major at Balmoral, was among them.
Speaking to HELLO! at Horse Guards Parade in London on Remembrance Sunday, Cox recalled a moment during an official photograph with the Royal Guard, which turned out to be the late monarch’s second-to-last official picture.
He said the Queen was “100%” in many ways and “very much herself” at the time.
Cox said that when the Queen came out carrying a Highland walking stick, he was holding his pace stick and asked whether he should put it aside. According to his account, the Queen replied that he could keep his stick and that she quite liked hers, a remark he described as a joke at his expense.
Cox said the soldiers found the exchange amusing and that the Queen seemed in very good spirits. He also described her as a champion of the soldiers and said she appeared most at home at Balmoral.
