Dr David Nott was put at ease by Queen Elizabeth’s pet dogs.
The British surgeon – who worked in war zones to help treat injured men, women and children – was left unable to speak to the 90-year-old royal when he was invited to meet her at Buckingham Palace in October 2014 but she soon calmed his nerves by asking for her pet corgis to join them.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, he recalled: "I [had been] coping [in Syria] with children that were really badly damaged and she must have detected something significant. I didn’t know what to say.
"It wasn’t that I didn’t want to speak to her – I just couldn’t. I just could not say anything. She picked all this up and said, ‘Well, shall I help you?’ I thought, ‘How on earth can the Queen help me?’ All of a sudden the courtiers brought the corgis and the corgis went underneath the table.
"And so for 20 minutes during this lunch the Queen and I fed the dogs. She did it because she knew that I was so seriously traumatised. You know the humanity of what she was doing was unbelievable."
Meanwhile, the monarch posed alongside her favourite pooches – Holly, Willow, Vulcan and Candy – for the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, something which she had requested herself.
Photographer Annie Leibovitz said: "The most moving, important thing about this shoot is that these were all her ideas. [The Queen] wanted to be photographed with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren; her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh; her daughter, Anne, the Princess Royal; and her corgis."
Queen Elizabeth’s corgis put hero doctor at ease
