Canberra Daily photographer, Kerrie Brewer, recalls the time all three of her three daughters serendipitously met and presented flowers to Queen Elizabeth at Commonwealth Park during the Queen’s last visit to Canberra in 2011, one of her 14 visits to the National Capital.
“The girls asked me if they could go and see the Queen,” Kerrie recalls.
“I agreed but only if we walked there and they had to go to school afterwards (that’s why they are all in their uniforms). They wanted to go on the other side of the lake but I decided to stop at the jetty, not realising it was in fact the perfect place to be to watch the Queen arrive.
“After standing in the crowd for what seemed a very long time, a Queen’s representative/security approached a lady who had a bunch of flowers and asked if she would like to give them to a child to give to the Queen. Her response was that she wanted to give them but was told that wouldn’t happen. I overhead this conversation and said my kids will do it.
“The man then said ‘which one?’, and I said I couldn’t choose and ‘they are all sisters, can’t they all go together?’. There was hesitation but it was agreed.
“They had to stand in position for a very long time before she arrived. I was nervous that they would run away at the last minute but they did stay in place and greet her.
“Jess went viral as she attempted to curtsy for the Queen. It was at the time of Julia Gillard and she didn’t curtsy or whatever the story was, but Jess was captured by the media doing the curtsy in a pair of shorts.
“We then walked to school and had a great story to tell about the morning the girls met the Queen from a last minute walk down to the lake.”
Kerrie says there have been lots of laughs over the years about meeting the Queen and the fact that, depending on the angle of the image (or family photo frames), some siblings have been cut from the scene.
“I don’t have a photo of them actually exchanging the flowers, I think I was very nervous what they would do after standing for so long on their own,” she laughs.
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