I have told this story before but it seems a good time to repeat it. Very many of the tributes to the Queen stress her sense of humour - the viral video of her with Paddington Bear is just one example. But there is even one from the world of go - this one.

I was in Guilin, China, and I visited a department store where I noticed some weiqi equipment for sale. When I went over to have a look I was staggered to see, on the counter, flyers that depicted a very important British lady with a weiqi set. The flyer was the one below.

The flyer did not mention who this person was, and I was therefore curious as to whether ordinary Chinese knew her. So I asked the sales assistant, and soon a gaggle of other people, curious about me the foreigner, gathered round. But none of them knew the lady’s identity. So I gave them a clue: she was the most important lady in Britain. “Ah!” said an enlightened listener: “Margaret Thatcher”. Having worked so long as a journalist following Mrs Thatcher, that gave me special delight. But it was in fact Queen Elizabeth II (with the Duke of Edinburgh).

When I returned to England, intrigued, I contacted Buckingham Palace to find out how the Queen had come to be looking at weiqi stones. I soon discovered it was a diplomatic gift of yunzi stones made to The Queen and the Duke when they visited Kunming on a State Visit in October 1986. I knew that the usual procedure for dealing with diplomatic gifts was to put them away in a warehouse called the Queen's Warehouse, even though it's also used for gifts to ministers. There's actually more than one, and the one at Heathrow houses a pair of crocodile shoes given to Mrs Thatcher which she naturally had to decline to use. But I could imagine she might have been tempted to keep a crocodile handbag! Recipients have the right to keep some items.

It's no surprise that Mrs Thatcher was so well known internationally, of course, and her trips were indeed sometimes treated like State Visits. I went with her when she visited Korea and we were taken from the military to the Presidential Palace in a motorcade with thousands lining the streets. I got the chance to practise my royal wave. There was a guard of honour when we landed at the airport, but it was inside the terminal and you saw it only as you turned left through the entrance door. I was right behind her as she leapt out of her skin - as we all did. The guard of honour, all about 7-foot tall, were absolutely terrifying. For us journalists that was the story for the day, and we soon found out that these soldiers all had to be black belts in a dozen martial arts and could shoot the whiskers off an ant a mile away. I exaggerate, of course, but only slightly.

For some reason, I've always contrasted that event involving the so-called Iron Lady (she was very sweet with us on the plane, actually) with the Queen when she was shot at riding her beloved horse Burmah in a procession on the Mall. Her Majesty appeared quite unflustered and was more concerned with calming the terrified horse. She then rode on as if nothing had happened. I could empathise with the Middle East dignitary who, we were told yesterday in the tributes to the Queen in the House of Commons, believed it was actually the Queen herself who parachuted out of a helicopter to open the 2012 Olympic Games with James Bond.

But back to the warehouse. Whenever a dignitary from the donor country next came to Britain, the idea is that gift stored there is brought out and displayed as if it was personally treasured. I wanted a photograph of these stones. But they could not be found in the warehouse.

After further investigation I was eventually told that the Queen, taking up her entitlement to keep favoured items for herself, had selected these yunzi stones to be displayed in her palace at Sandringham. What I was also told, on condition of anonymity, was that as the as the yunzi pieces looked just like sweeties, she would put them in a bowl, hoping unsuspecting guests would try to suck and bite them. I have no idea whether this is true, but it certainly seems to fit in with the many examples of humour we have been hearing about.

The Queen's favourite residence in England was said to be Windsor Palace. In the Queen's Bedroom there (not hers - I think it was Queen Anne's) is usually a huge portrait of Shen Fuzong, son of a Chinese convert to Catholicism in Nanjing. Born in 1658, he had been baptised as Michael Alphonsus and had expressed a wish to train as a Jesuit priest and so was eventually sent to Europe. There he invited to Oxford by the great English scholar Dr Thomas Hyde, resulting in the first description of the game in English. I am pretty sure Queen Elizabeth would have known this portrait it's so big - although she may not have suspected the go connection.

The Queen told Paddington Bear she, too, used to keep a marmalade sandwich in her handbag (not crocodile leather!) for emergencies. If you share the apparently worldwide admiration for Her Majesty, perhaps. like me, you could have a marmalade sandwich for tea today and remember her almost constant smile.

Very nice that the Palace responded to your inquiry. I wonder what some of the oldest gifts in storage are. Cute that the Queen kept them. What an icon she was. It's hard to think that any successor will garner such affection.

I'm fresh out of marmalade but I'll down a few carmel Digestives and Yunzi arrives in her honor. Only a few though since I need to watch my lead intake.

Thanks for sharing, John. That was a very pleasant read on a Saturday morning.

I took the liberty of sharing most of your post on the OGS forums.

I seem to remember that the Queen received another weiqi set either from Xi Jinping or the Chinese ambassador, some time in the early 2010s or late 2000s, when the Chinese delegation was visiting the UK.

Did I read that in the BGJ? Or perhaps on SL? Or am I imagining this?

PS. You can read another version of the Fairbairn Queen story at https://senseis.xmp.net/?Yunzi%2Fdiscussion

I'm wrong. What I remembered was an article by Ian Sharpe in BGJ #159 (Spring 2012), "My Experience with Yunzi Stones".

In the article, Ian said simply that "Queen Elizabeth II was presented with a set by the Chinese government" without giving a date, so I'd mentally marked that as 2011. This would've really been the 1986 occurrence Fairbairn speaks of.