Granny gets a phone.
UK's Queen Elizabeth gets her first mobile phone
Reuters, Sep 25 2001
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LONDON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - She may have banned her servants from carrying
them, but now Queen Elizabeth has entered the high-tech revolution by getting her
own mobile phone.
Her son Prince Andrew bought his mother the phone as a present so she could
keep in contact with other royals, Britain's Sun newspaper reported on Tuesday.
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman was unable to confirm the report. "We
never have details of family presents," she told Reuters.
The Sun said the queen never used her mobile in public, but often had it at royal
residences to talk to her family, adding that she also used it to talk to her contacts
in her favourite sport of horse-racing.
"If the queen is walking on a royal estate, miles from a landline phone, she can
stay in contact. It was a bit of a novelty at first, but now it is second nature," a
senior courtier was quoted as saying.
Prince Andrew had pre-programmed his mother's phone with the numbers of her
four children so she could recall them with speed-dialling, the paper said.
The Sun said the queen -- like many VIPs -- had a special mobile phone number
so as to avoid wrong calls and to make sure nobody got her number.
Last year, the queen banned servants from carrying mobile phones on duty
because the constant interruptions irritated her. |
