Nursery owner met Queen at Chelsea Flower Show

The Queen laughed and chatted with Lorraine Hart and wanted to know about her lilies

A nursery owner has spoken of how she was "beckoned" over to meet the Queen at this year's Chelsea Flower Show.

Lorraine Hart has attended the show for nearly 20 years and said she always saw the monarch walking around but did not think she would come to her stand.

"You can imagine how privileged I felt," Ms Hart, of Harts Nursey in Congleton, Cheshire, said.

There had not been any warning and Ms Hart did not know the protocol "so I just bent down to her", she said.

The Queen attended this year's flower show in a buggy and so was able to make unprecedented stops where, at one, the flower show president called Ms Hart over.

"I was beckoned over - there is a protocol for meeting the Queen and everybody is normally told if she is coming to them and how to act," said Ms Hart.

"Well, I did not have any of that and did not know what to do. Because she was in a buggy I just bent down to her.

"She made me feel so at ease, chatted along and laughing, asking how I grew the flowers and got them open at the same time.

"She wanted to know about the lilies, so many different varieties she didn't know there was that many."

Lorraine Hart had seen the Queen 60 years earlier, when her car stopped at a zebra crossing as the eight-year-old made her way to school

Ms Hart also remembered an occasion, 60 years earlier, when she had been going to school aged eight, in Epsom, Surrey, and the Queen arrived for the Epsom Derby.

"She stopped at the zebra crossing for us to get across. That was another big moment as she waved out of the window," she said.

She said it was going to be a shame to no longer see the Queen at the flower show, but thought King Charles would carry on the visits.

"All the royals loved gardening," she said,

"Princess Alexandra bought some bulbs off me while she was with the Queen."

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