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John Torode on late Queen's 'great' personality and 'incredible' dedication to realm
John Torode, 57, was fortunate enough to meet Queen Elizabeth II on two occasions, having first met the monarch in 2009.The Celebrity MasterChef judge spoke to Express.co.uk about the "incredible" monarch whom he had the pleasure to meet at Buckingham Palace.John is known for being the face of BBC's MasterChef since 2005 alongside greengrocer, Gregg Wallace.Due to his highly successful cooking career, John has been given the opportunity to meet the Queen on two occasions.The MasterChef judge opened up about the "great honour" he felt meeting such a powerful monarch.John said: "The Queen, I mean, I suppose it's one of those great, great honours."The second meet, it was a private audience, which was for something about Australians, who were working in the UK and were high profile and so there was a lineup of Hugh Jackman, Jason Donovan, myself, it was just great!"It was really really interesting to meet her face to face and have a proper little chat."She’s an incredible woman who went and spoke to the 200 people in each room."He went on: "People come up to you and talk to you about how to address the Queen. It was just such an amazing way that it worked."I think I read that one year she had 580 official engagements, which is more than twice a day which is really quite incredible."John also recalled driving through the Buckingham Palace gates as it was something he never thought he would do.He continued: "The first time I met her was about 2009 and it was a sort of large gathering of around 600 people and you got moved from room to room, it was very formal."The most exciting thing was driving through the gates in my car."That was great.
