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The Queen carried out her first engagement outside of a royal residence since lockdown with her grandson Prince William recently.
And while the pair didn’t travel together to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in Wiltshire, William arriving by car and the Queen by helicopter, they’ve always shared a close bond as this fascinating vintage video clip proves.
The footage was captured 34 years ago during the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in 1986, when William was just four years old.
The young prince, dressed in a fetching sailor suit, can be seen dashing towards the carriage, as the beaming bride waves from inside. The Queen, dressed in blue, obviously had her eyes trained on her boisterous grandson and rushes forward to grab William, keeping him from danger of being knocked over by the huge carriage wheels!
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As second in line to the throne behind his father Prince Charles, William has previously described his grandmother as “the best role model” he could ask for, adding that she’s always "very supportive" of him.
He has been training for his future role as king from the age of five – a year after the endearing video was shot. In his teen years he began spending more and more time with the monarch to learn the ropes and while studying at Eton he’d regularly join the Queen for tea at Windsor Castle on Sunday afternoons.
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The Queen wears pink for first public engagement since March with Prince William
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"There has always been a special closeness between William and the Queen, and she has taken a particular interest in him," explains royal author Robert Lacey, consultant on Netflix series The Crown.
Continuing: "She would have him at Windsor Castle and would open the state boxes and guide him through the papers. It was William’s constitutional education."
It was also the Queen who William turned to when he lost his mother in 1997 at the age of 15.
Speaking in tribute to his grandmother on her 90th birthday, he said: "Having lost my mother at a very young age, it has been particularly important for me that I had somebody like the Queen to look up to and who has been there and has understood some of the more complex issues when you lose a loved one."
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The pair share the same wicked sense of humour and quick wit and have often been seen giggling at a private joke during public appearances. The Queen even lent her support to William when he was planning his 2011 wedding to Kate.
Speaking at an anti-bullying event in 2015 he revealed that Her Majesty would be one of the people he’d turn to, along with his father, if he ever experienced bullying.
It’s always said that the Queen greatly respects and admires her grandson, especially for the way he balances his family life with his royal duties.
In fact, it was alleged that she and William made a ‘secret pact’ after the arrival of his firstborn in 2013. The pair apparently have a ‘quiet understanding’ that William can, when possible, enjoy an independent life with his family away from the goldfish bowl existence in the capital.
As a result, Anmer Hall on the Norfolk estate of Sandringham, which was gifted to William and Kate as a wedding present, has become a welcome retreat for the Cambridges.
Having enjoyed a close relationship with his grandmother, or ‘granny’ as he calls her, William is understandably protective of her.
He expressed his concerns over the health of both his grandparents during the early days of the pandemic.
"I think very carefully about my grandparents who are, you know, at the age they’re at, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure that they’re isolated away and protected from this," he said during a BBC roundtable discussion.
Adding: "It does worry me, you know, what’s going to happen to a lot of the vulnerable people."
William was said to be over the moon when he finally was able to see his 94-year-old grandmother face to face at the end of the summer in a visit to Balmoral, Scotland, after six months of catching up solely via video links.
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Despite being the matriarch of the world’s most famous royal family, the Queen takes her role as a mother and grandmother very seriously. It’s no surprise then that she is apparently terrified of William’s penchant for riding motorbikes, a hobby that he has cut back on as his responsibilities as a family man took precedence.
"I don’t know what it is about bikes, but I’ve always had a passion for motorbikes ever since I was very small," William once admitted.
"I used to do a lot of go-karting when I was younger and then after that I went on to quadbikes and eventually motorbikes," he explained.
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The Queen wears pink for first public engagement since March with Prince William
But according to a documentary Chasing the Royals, royal photographer James Whitaker said: "I think it frightens the life out of people at Buckingham Palace and almost certainly, the Queen too."
She’s got no qualms about ticking William off though.
At 2016’s Trooping the Colour as the royals gathered on the Buckingham Palace balcony, William momentarily crouched down to speak to his eldest son Prince George. Horrified that he was breaking with etiquette, the Queen could be spotted muttering to him, ‘William, stand up!’ – which he immediately did, of course!
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