Royal Birkhall and the Russian samovar - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

It was decided, however, that it would be acceptable for the Queen Mother to receive the gift itself. Time was short if the gift was to be delivered during the Russian Knights short visit to the UK especially as the Queen Mother was currently holidaying at one of her favourite residences, Birkhall House in the Balmoral Estate, in the far north east of Scotland.

I was detailed to drive up to the north of Scotland overnight and deliver the gift to Sir Alastair Aird, the Comptroller of the Queen Mother’s household. The arrangements were quickly made. To share the long drive, I took with me Pilot Officer Russ Fraser, a young officer who was working for me temporarily while waiting for the next phase of his flying training. I'd first met Russ when he was a cadet with the Royton Air Training Corps Squadron in Greater Manchester and I'd gone to the Squadron on a staff inspection with Group Captain John McMinn. I told Russ that we would travel in comfortable civilian clothes but take our formal uniform with us so that we could change before entering the Balmoral Estate. There was just a possibility that we might meet someone important – perhaps even the Queen mother. Just in case, I briefed Russ on how to greet royalty.

After passing through the beautiful town of Ballater, only a few miles from Birkhall House, we turned into the narrow approach road and started looking for a suitably secluded place amongst the trees where we could change into uniform. We thought we had found the ideal place but just as we were pulling into the side of the road, I noticed someone I took to be a British Telecom linesman working at the top of a telegraph pole. He waved cheerily at us and we drove on without stopping. A few hundred metres further on, out of sight of the telephone man, we pulled into a sizeable clearing on the side of the road. There was no-one in sight and so we got out of the car and quickly changed into uniform. We were expected at 1030 so we had about ten minutes to spare as we continued the drive along a winding tree-lined avenue towards the house. Suddenly, after going round a sharp bend, we were brought to a halt facing someone we took to be a game-keeper. He was standing in the middle of the road and had a shot gun cradled in his arms. He came up to the car as I wound the window down.

"That man up the telegraph pole must have been one of the security guards, I suppose?" I asked weakly, hoping fervently that he would be very discreet with any negatives or video footage. It did not bear thinking about what the Red Arrows would do with pictures of Russ and me without trousers in a forest clearing if they got their hands on them!

"He might have been," grinned the game-keeper. "Keep right on for another hundred yards. You’ll come to a car park near the stables behind the house. Park there and Sir Alastair will meet you."

He waved us on, still grinning broadly. We found a parking space and looked around. Sir Alastair Aird came out of the house almost immediately and introduced himself. We showed him the large box in the boot containing the highly ornate samovar.

"Ah, it’s electric," he said thoughtfully, peering inside the container.

"Yes sir," I replied. "The outside is a replica of a traditional Russian samovar but this is a modern electric version. You will see that General Antoshkin has had the emblems of the Russian Knights and the Red Arrows engraved on it as well as the Royal Cipher. We had the electrics checked over at Scampton. Our engineers recommend that you don’t permit the Queen Mother to plug it into the mains – it’s not entirely safe by UK standards."

"I will certainly make sure that is passed on to the Housekeeper," said Sir Alastair gravely. "I think the best thing to do is place the samovar on a lace cloth on a small table out on the front lawn and then you can formally present it to Queen Elizabeth before the flypast. Would that be all right do you think?"

In Court Circles the lady ordinary folk called the Queen Mother was always referred to as Queen Elizabeth. There could be no confusion because her daughter was always referred to simply as The Queen.

I replied that it certainly would be all right for us to present the Samovar personally.

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