It's been decades since Hubbardsville resident Andy Richards and his comrade in the British Army's Life Guards regiment stood side by side at the top of a flight of stairs in the Houses of Parliament in London.

With their swords drawn, white plumes cascading from the tops of their metal helmets above their scarlet tunics, they stood firm, awaiting the royal couple.

It was the State Opening of Parliament. Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip were climbing the stairs toward Richards.

As they reached the top, they shared a moment 60-year-old Richards has never forgotten — one of several times in his career he glimpsed the kind woman behind his commander in chief. Queen Elizabeth II looked up at Richards and his friend, towering over her, and she smiled. 

Between their size, a stark contrast to the diminuitive queen and her consort, and perhaps their swords, the queen, her smile seemed to say, felt well protected, Richards said.

When Richards learned of the queen's death at the age of 96 on Sept. 8, he remembered the pride of his 23-year career serving her in the Life Guards, Great Britain's senior regiment, and registered a tremendous sense of loss.

"I’ve known nothing but the queen. … There’s a massive hole that needs filling,” he said.  

As the world mourns the death of Queen Elizabeth II after a 70-year reign, Richards has looked back on his years in her service.

He joined in 1979, when he was 16 ½, his path seemingly predetermined by his father's career in the air force and an educational system that didn't, back then, send students like him to university. He spent four years of his career in the 1990s in ceremonial duty, which let him observe the royal family up close.

The queen, he discovered, had a sharp eye when inspecting the troops, catching anything awry from hundreds of feet away and telling commanding officers about it. At the same time, Richards' fellow soldiers who'd met her attested the queen was "the expert," he recalled, "at making you feel at ease."

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He witnessed that other side of her personality firsthand on Nov. 20, 1992, the day Windsor Castle caught fire. On that day, Richards and his fellow soldiers rushed valuables from the castle to the safety of the nearby stables. They formed a 50-man line with Richards at the front, carrying the world's largest carpet rolled up on their shoulders. The scene would catch the eye of a photojournalist, whose photo of the men ran in newspapers around the world.

For Richards, another image stands out: a 66-year-old woman, dressed in a green coat and a headscarf, a look of dismay on her face. It was the first time Richards had seen Queen Elizabeth II up close.

“What I saw that day was a lady watching her house burn down," he recalled, "and it was awful."

Richards heard, too, about a heavy marble bust some of his comrades had struggled to carry down a staircase, how the queen had seen them struggle, and told them to put it down. It didn't matter, she told them. The next day, as an army chef prepared food on the castle grounds for troops and firefighters still at the scene, the queen had joined them.

“That was my eye opener,” Richards said, “to see Her Majesty, that she was human and a really, really decent person.”  

After retiring in 2002 as a staff corporal (a master sergeant outside the Life Guards), Richards moved to the United States with his wife Melissa, who is the vice president of communications at Hamilton College in Clinton. Their home sits on 18 acres of rolling hills, and it reminds him of Devon, where he spent time in the military. 

He farms their land to achieve self-sufficiency, writes books, including two on the British military, and cares for his daughter, Jaden, who is 19 and has a rare genetic syndrome, Bohring-Opitz Syndrome (ASXL1) gene, that affects growth and development. It's a challenging job, but he's always had a shining example of service to look to.   

“When you see examples like the queen,” Richards said, “who has dedicated her whole life to the service of other people, it’s inspirational. And that’s my enduring memory of her — duty.”   

And that sense of duty was unyielding, Richards said, pointing to the queen's final days and yet another image of the queen that will forever live in his memory.

“I will never forget the image of her ... getting out of her chair to greet the incoming and outgoing prime ministers. And then two days later, she died.”

Buckingham Palace warned the public that the queen was unwell, but news of her death still hit hard. Richards said he was overcome by it despite his usual stiff upper lip. It will take a while, he said, to get used to her being gone, even as the days of mourning unfold and the funeral events proceed.

"You can dislike the monarchy all you want," Richards said, "but you can't dislike the queen because she was a wonderful person."

When Richards and his wife travel to England for Christmas with his entire family this year, they’ll gather around the television at 3 p.m. on Christmas Day. They'll wait to watch and hear the Christmas message that has been part of British holiday tradition for 90 years.

But for the first time in Richards' life, the voice he'll hear that day will not be the queen's.

“We’ll be watching,” Richards said, feeling the strangeness, “the King’s Speech this year.”  

Richards has written two books that concern the British military: "After the Wall Came Down: Soldiering through the Transformation of the British Army, 1990-2020" and "The Flag: The Story of Revd David Railton MC and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior."

Amy Neff Roth covers issues that affect families for the Observer-Dispatch. Contact her at aroth@uticaod.com.