My husband's great grandfather had a close friendship with Lord Gowrie, the Governor of South Australia and later the Governor General of Australia. Lord Gowrie and great grandfather used to go fishing together when they were young boys in Pencaitland, Scotland. Great grandfather Ritchie emigrated to Australia, settling in Renmark. Nearly 50 years later, Lord Gowrie was on an official visit to Renmark and ggRitchie met up with him. Lord Gowrie kept in contact with ggRitchie and made a point of having afternoon tea with his old friend whenever he made visits to the area.
When my husband's mother was aged about 10 years (1940), she along with her sister, wrote a letter to Lady Gowrie asking her if she would pass on to Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret letters that they had written. We have a reply from Lady Gowrie saying that she would but the princesses were very busy and may not have time to reply. The princess did in fact reply, sending postcards back. One was blank and the other did have writing on the back from Princess Elizabeth. My husband's mother treasured this postcard and had this in her possession up until the time she went into a nursing home 3 years ago. Unfortunately one of her sons was going through some of her personal papers and came across the postcard and not knowing what this was put it through the shredder.
Luckily we have the signed letter from Lady Gowrie, the blank postcard (a picture of a very young Princess Margaret on the front), telegrams from Lord Gowrie sent on the death of g grandmother and g grandfather Ritchie, and also copies of a number of newspaper articles from the local paper that give details of Lord and Lady Gowrie's friendship with our ancestor.
Kaybron