The 5 surprisingly normal tasks Queen Elizabeth II insisted on doing herself

It’s hard to picture Queen Elizabeth grabbing the Fairy Liquid and washing her guests’ dishes, yet it is quite endearing at the same time. Multiple sources claim she liked to do the clearing up and washing-up herself when she had visitors over. 

In Gyles Brandreth’s book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, he shared a story involving former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who talked of his visits to Balmoral: “I’m not making this up, you sat down and Prince Philip and Her Majesty the Queen served your dinner and cleared it away and washed it up while you sat talking with the other guests.” I wish I were blessed with that same enthusiasm to wash my own dishes every day, but alas, I don’t have a Queen to help me out!

When it came to feeding her Corgis, the Queen was always on standby as she was Corgi-obsessed, having owned over 30 pets throughout her lifetime. Her love for animals was legendary, so it’s no wonder she wanted to help out personally. Former royal chef Darren McGrady told HELLO!: “The Queen would feed them herself, I think after she’d had her tea.” She was a true animal lover, after all, and I imagine she genuinely enjoyed looking after them.

There’s no doubt someone would have offered to drive the late Queen around in a heartbeat, but she was famously known to get behind the wheel herself. 

You may have heard that she never legally held a driving licence, and this is correct as she couldn’t legally issue one to herself, given that licences were issued in her name. That didn’t stop her from driving herself to royal duties such as in May 2019, when she was spotted driving to the Royal Windsor Horse Show, in her Range Rover, of course.

Like her dogs, the Queen had a soft spot for her horses and was frequently spotted getting involved with feeding and grooming them. In June 2022, she was seen in archive footage at Sandringham feeding one of her horses a carrot and affectionately petting it. The Queen didn’t keep horses simply because she could, she had a genuine affection that made her want to care for them, which was rather lovely.

One would imagine a royal barbecue would be manned entirely by palace staff, but alas, no: it was Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth who usually organised it. According to Balmoral’s housekeeper Sheena Stuart, the couple liked to host at their Scottish summer home. 

Speaking on Countryfile, Sheena revealed: “The Duke, he cooks, the Queen sets up the table. There are no staff that come out to serve.” Nothing is more quintessentially British than a family summer barbecue, proving they really were just like the rest of us at times.