For learners end of year 2 - please read rather slowly. Thanks a lot in advance!
Tea with the Queen
Queen Elizabeth II often has guests for tea. It's a great honour to be invited to the Queen - but her guests have to know and to respect some rules of etiquette.
Before you meet the Queen in Buckingham Palace, you must choose suitable clothes for the event. You needn't wear your most elegant outfit, but it goes without saying that you shouldn't go to the Palace in jeans or in shirts of too bright or brilliant colours.
Please make sure you arrive at the Palace on time and wait until one of her assistants asks you in. When you meet the Queen herself in her tea room, it would be wrong to say "Hello" or "Good afternoon" to her - the right words to speak to a queen are "Her Royal Highness" or "Her Majesty".
Then everybody goes to the table and takes a seat. Don't sit down before you're asked to - and especially not while the Queen is still standing. She's the one who sits down first, and nobody sits down before her. Then it is again the Queen who starts the meal. Usually there is black tea with lemon or milk and sugar, along with some biscuits, cakes or scones. You should remember all the good table manners you've ever learned: for example, never talk with your mouth full, don't eat or drink noisily and be careful your crumbs stay on your plate and not on the carpet.
The Queen usually likes a little smalltalk during tea. For guests it is important to know that they can't just talk about anything they like, but that it's up to her to choose a topic. This is to make sure that you don't bore her with any subject she doesn't know or she doesn't like. And when she finishes and stands up, so does everybody else. Tea time is over then. To say good-bye, it's again "Her Majesty" that are the best words.
By the way, do you know where the tradition of 5 o'clock tea in England comes from? It goes back to Anna Maria Russel, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, one of Queen Victoria's Ladies of the Bedchamber. Anna was always hungry and couldn't wait for dinner at around 9 pm. So she asked Queen Victoria if it was okay to have some biscuits and a cup of tea in the afternoon. Queen Victoria, who was the great-great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, liked the idea so much that it soon became a custom.
