The Queen left Balmoral for the last time this morning as the first stage of her final journey begins. The longest reigning monarch’s coffin is travelling by hearse from Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh on a slow six-hour route, where the grieving public are lining the streets to pay their respects. Among those in her funeral cortege is the Queen’ s only daughter, Princess Anne, who is expected to travel with her mother onwards to London.
In the three days since the Queen’s passing at Balmoral on Thursday afternoon, people from across the world have been sharing tributes to the beloved monarch, who touched the lives of so many. Among the many wonderful memories, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the writer behind the Queen’s incredible James Bond skit from the 2012 opening ceremony of the Olympics, has shared his own interesting tale.
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Boyce has often spoken about the brilliant moment when the Queen volunteered herself to be part of the Bond special – rejecting the idea of a stand-in actor doing the job and even writing her own lines.
The original plan was to get a Queen lookalike to play a part in the sketch, so Boyce’s team asked someone to go and take photos of the clothing that the late monarch would be wearing for the Olympics ceremony – for continuity.
Instead, the Queen’s dresser insisted that Her Majesty would want to take part in the sketch herself, and when asked, she was reportedly amused and very keen for the role.
Today on BBC 5 Live radio, Boyce revealed yet another element of the script that the Queen had a hand in, as she wanted to help choose the helicopter that she would ‘jump out’ of.
Opening up about the special moment for the first time, Boyce said: “We took the storyboards in to show her and she had comments to make about what kind of helicopter should be used”.
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Owing to the Queen’s extensive military knowledge, Boyce added that “she knew what kind of helicopters could feasibly fly under the Tower Bridge, which is really funny”.
The writer continued to explain that he hadn’t written lines for the Queen, insisting that she carved her own part on the day.
“I didn’t give her a line, partly because I didn’t know how to type ‘the Queen says'”, he explained.
“On the day she asked for a line, she said to Danny [Boyle] “I think I should have a line’ so she built her own part – she really wanted to do it”.
According to the production manager on set, the Queen kept her part hidden from her family until the big day.
Earlier this year, Sam Hunter said: “The Queen never told her family she was doing it. That was one of the stipulations when she agreed to be part of it.”
Alongside the notorious Bond skit, Boyce also wrote the Paddington film which saw the Queen share a magical moment with the much-loved fictional bear.
* This weekend, the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror celebrate the life of Her Majesty the Queen with a commemorative special filled with all the key moments from Britain’s longest reigning monarch. Be sure to pick up your copy of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror to get poth pullouts.
You can leave your tributes to Queen Elizabeth II here.
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