When Arthur ‘Bushy’ Pembroke met a young Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace in 1953, he was so overwhelmed by her beauty he wrote home to his fiancée in Australia, giddy with admiration for the royal.
Yesterday, Colonel Pembroke and Her Majesty, 85, came face-to-face once again, and the war veteran says she was just as breathtakingly lovely as she was when they first met 58 years ago.
In pictures: Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Australia
Bushy, now 83, was a young man himself when he was summoned to Buckingham Palace to receive his Military Cross from the queen in recognition of his courageous service in the Korean War.
On Saturday, Bushy was back at the Royal Military College, Duntroon — where he graduated more than 60 years ago — to watch his granddaughter Harriet, 26, Pembroke take part in the Trooping of the Colour parade to honour Queen Elizabeth’s fourth visit to the college.
The queen attended the parade to present the college with new ‘colours’, a ceremonial flag that symbolises the morale of the unit.
After the marching was over, Harriet escorted a very proud Bushy to the garden party at nearby Duntroon House, where she presented him to the queen.
Despite the long decades that have passed between meetings, Bushy — a nickname he acquired during the Korean War after a lack of water for shaving left him sporting a particularly full moustache — insists the queen is almost exactly as he remembers her.
“She hasn’t really changed,” he said after their meeting. “She was such a beautiful young lady then. I wrote to my fiancée in Sydney that she looked so beautiful in her yellow outfit.
“Apart from the obvious slight ageing, she is exactly the same. She’s still very beautiful and she’s still got that lovely smile.”
In pictures: Previous royal visits to Australia
The queen did indeed look lovely yesterday, wearing an electric blue coat, dress and hat by Angela Kelly.
She has presented new colours to the royal Military College four times, in 1957, 1970 and 1988. The college’s first royal colours were presented by the queen’s father King George VI in 1927.
Each time new colours are presented, the old ones — worn from use in various parades — go on display in the college’s chapel.
Video: Day four of the queen’s visit
