When greeting Queen Elizabeth II, it’s royal protocall to bow or curtsy. And it's common knowledge that you must only ever refer to the Queen of England as Ma'am or Her Majesty.
But do the same rules apply when the monarch just so happens to also be your grandma?
According to Business Insider, Princes William and Harry use the informal term ‘granny’ when visiting the Queen for afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace.
But it turns out that William had another secret nickname for his grandmother when he was growing up. In a recent piece for the Daily Mail, columnist Richard Kay revealed that the royal had a mischevious side.
Richard recalled how at two, ‘William was boisterous and full of beans.’ And one memory in particular demonstrates William’s cheeky side.
According to Richard, after tumbling over, two-year-old William bawled: “Gary, Gary.” A guest at the palace asked who Gary was, presuming that he was a member of the royal family.
Yet the Queen swept in to help her grandson and simply replied: “I’m Gary. He hasn’t learned to say granny yet.”
And it seems the age-old saying, ‘like father, like son’, rings true in the royal household, as Prince George has certainly followed in his dad's footsteps.
In a special ITV programme recorded in celebration of the Queen’s 90th birthday, Kate Middleton revealed that three-year-old George refers to his great-grandma as ‘Gan-Gan’.
We really do hope that Gary, sorry, the Queen doesn’t mind.
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