A shopper’s shock at bumping into the Queen and special deliveries of carrots and coconuts were among the stories shared by Norfolk MPs in the House of Commons.
All dressed in black, MPs rose for a minute’s silence before prime minister Liz Truss opened two days of parliamentary tributes, hailing the Queen as “one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known,” and the “rock on which modern Britain was built”.
In the near-11-hour session held on Friday 182 MPs paid tribute to the late monarch including Norfolk MPs who recounted fond memories of her times at Sandringham.
MP for North West Norfolk James Wild recounted a story of when Queen Elizabeth II was told she looked just like the Queen.
He said: “The people living in the villages around the Sandringham estate have great affection for the Queen. She was a very special part of those close-knit communities.
“They have happy memories of encounters with the Queen, because as well as the private time she spent there, she chose to undertake many visits over the years.”
He added: “She was a constant and cherished part of life in west Norfolk. And perhaps surprisingly she was even able to go about her life there without fuss. Indeed famously when out shopping one day a woman remarked to her: ‘you look just like the Queen’.
“To which the Queen is said to have replied: ‘how reassuring’. Presumably with a twinkle in her eye.”
Conservative MP Duncan Baker told the Commons how the Queen had liked to place a “special delivery” every Christmas.
The MP for North Norfolk was told by a delivery driver how one year he had “forgotten the Queen’s special order and had to turn around to go back and get it himself”.
Mr Baker told MPs he asked the driver what the order was, adding: “He (the driver) said, ‘well, every year the Queen asks us to put on the side 10 carrots and two coconuts, halved, drilled and hung with some string.
“Well, of course I looked rather quizzical at this. I wondered how the royal family would share two coconuts all round the table for their Christmas lunch and eat it from a piece of string with the husk still around it.
“But of course, I was told that what the Queen likes to do is on the cold crisp morning of Christmas day itself, she steps out from her bedroom into her private garden to hang the coconut on a tree to then retire to her bedroom to watch the birds eat the coconut herself.
“And then I said ‘what about these carrots?’ ‘Oh yes’, he said ‘they have to be particularly of a certain size, absolutely cylindrical so that they fit into the Queen’s jacket’. ‘Now what is going on with this’, ‘well, of course’, he said, ‘it’s her special treat to the royal ponies’.”
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said: “This is when the House is at its best, when it is united in grief that brings us together with so many stories and memories that’s been paid in such moving tributes.
“Can I say we’ve had 182 contributions and tributes today.”
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