Queen Elizabeth’s Childhood Friend Lady Myra Butter Dies

Lady Myra Butter, who was a close friend of the Queen, 96, since childhood, died “peacefully” on July 29, according to a notice published in The Daily Telegraph. She was 97.

After meeting in childhood, the Queen and Lady Myra remained good friends throughout their lives. The Queen and her sister, Princess Margaret, attended Lady Myra’s wedding to Major David Butter in 1946.

Last year, Lady Myra spoke to The Telegraph about her relationship with the Queen, recalling how they took swimming lessons together.

“The Queen said it’s a very long time ago,” she told the newspaper after seeing an old photo from the bath club. “Well, it jolly well is, I think I was 12. I’m rather lucky in that department. My memory is good and so is hers.”

Lady Myra was one of several girls tapped by Buckingham Palace to join the then-Princess Elizabeth in various activities.

“They got hold of some girls to be part of the thing to make it more fun,” Lady Myra said. “In the Guides and the Brownies it was a real mixture, which was really nice, some friends, friends of [the family], and all the people in the royal mews, their children, they were Brownies and Guides. Just a normal sort of pack really.”

Lady Myra, who is also a cousin of Prince Philip‘s, noted that the Queen had a “very good sense of humor, which has gone on for all her life.”