The Queen said, “Come and help me decide what to do with a hundred yards of tapa cloth the Queen of Tonga very generously sent me.”

It was the summer of 1976. We were at Balmoral, the neo-Gothic castle built in Scotland on an estate acquired by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria in 1852. It was intended from the start as a country retreat for the royal family. I had had some trepidation when Princess Margaret, a close friend of my late British wife, and our daughter’s godmother, asked if I would come and bring Anna to Balmoral. Although Princess Margaret had become a family intimate, and I had often met the Queen and other members of the family, the concept of royalty remained, for an American, anachronistic. I remember my astonishment at the swarms of women gathered around radios in New York department stores, in 1936, to hear Edward VIII announce his abdication. Before that, my only previous brush with matters royal had been at Columbia, where the chapel choir wore red robes, a privilege bestowed by the Crown before the American Revolution, when the university was called King’s College.

The first day and night at Balmoral were a relief. Despite the grandiose setting, the atmosphere was relaxed. Besides the Queen and Prince Philip, the young princes Andrew and Edward were there. So were two equerries to the Queen, Blair Stewart-Wilson and Robin Broke, and a lady-in-waiting, Rose Baring. The front hall was dominated by a monumental statue of Prince Albert. All around were Edwin Landseer portraits of gillies, their eyes rolled heavenward, as I recall, like those of saints painted in the Baroque manner. I was roused my first morning by a bagpiper—the family alarm clock.

During my 10-day stay, overnight guests were few. Perhaps the most striking visitor was the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, who wore knee breeches and shoes with prominent silver buckles. One afternoon I happened to meet the Queen in the garden; she asked me to come to the front lawn, where a vast array of patterned fabric had been laid out, a present from the Tongans. She thought to use the fabric as wallpaper for a room in the castle, and I agreed that that was a good idea.

On some days there were excursions into the country. The Queen had been taught to drive by auxiliary army officers during World War II, and she handled a Land Rover with intrepid skill on the hilly and winding roads. When we went riding, she saddled her horse, and afterward carried the saddle back to the stable herself. At a shoot on the grounds a truck delivered a sumptuous buffet lunch. The “guns” lay on the grass for a postprandial respite. The Queen and her sister walked about, deep in conversation. They were very close; when apart, they telephoned two or three times a day. The atmosphere was always agreeable, buoyed by the light touch of the Queen and her sister.

When Anna and I were leaving, and the Queen was seeing us off, I said, “Ma’am, do you mind if I take a picture?” “Not at all,” she replied. “But I’m amazed that you have any film left.”