In which Queen Victoria calls on my great great great grandmother

I thought I would have a search for my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell in the British Newspaper Archive, and I struck gold. He was the subject of an article in The Sphere for 13 October 1900 - the photograph above is taken from it.

There's more than one post in it for me, but here is Queen Victoria calling on Sandy's mother - and my great great great grandmother - Margaret Campbell (née Gordon), 1808-91. What the report calls "Kintore" is the settlement near Crathie known as Khantore today:

Sandy and the late John Brown were boys about Balmoral, and were close and intimate friends through life. They both attended Prince Albert when deerstalking, Sandy's particular domain being the Glassalt Shiel district, where his father was keeper before him. 

For many years after her husband's death his mother lived at Kintore, Crathie, where she had a free croft and cottage, as well as many other gifts from the bounty of the Queen. While Mrs. Campbell lived Her Majesty paid her a yearly visit, as is her custom yet to her old pensioners, residenters, and tenants, and presented her with a new gown and a pound of tea, and made numerous inquiries as to her health and supply of bodily comforts. 

The Queen never does her calling in any perfunctory manner. She left her carriage, entered the little homely "but and ben," a thatched but comfortable cot, and seating herself in the "ben," or parlour, would engage in a homely confab over various domestic affairs of an hour's duration, and often to the annoyance of John Brown, especially if it was a good angling day, as he would be impatient to get his royal mistress home in order that he might get free himself and on to the water. "When you women get together there's nae end to your gab" John was heard once to remark as he tucked his royal mistress into her carriage and mounted the box himself.

But that was five-and-twenty years ago. Most of these old landmarks have gone over to the majority; John himself lies in the little old country kirkyard of Crathie, and no wonder that the Queen has a fondness for Sandy Campbell and such like life servants. They are all that are left to her of a bright and happy past, and Balmoral would indeed be to her the banquet hall deserted were it not that a few a very few are still left to her now staid grey old men who were boys in her service forty and more years ago.

There'll be more on Sandy Campbell another day. Like his friend John Brown, he is buried in the old kirkyard at Crathie.