The Queen spoke to a woman who lost her husband to cancer on a visit to an 18th century mill in Shrewsbury.

Tracey Hanan, 56, showed Camilla a wooden board which had been used to hold a pork pie wedding cake when she married her late husband Tony in 2017.

Mrs Hanan had been left distraught when the etching on the board bearing their names began to fade following her husband’s death from prostate cancer in 2021.

But the item was returned to its former glory when she visited the Shrewsbury Repair Cafe – which restores damaged items – and was one of the volunteer groups who met the Queen on Wednesday.

Mrs Hanan’s brief conversation with Camilla about the loss of her husband was given a particular poignancy by the recent cancer diagnoses of the King and the Princess of Wales.

Sweet moment Camilla poses for a selfie with ecstatic little lad

The woman’s brief conversation with Camilla about the loss of her husband was given a particular poignancy by the recent cancer diagnoses of the King and the Princess of Wales. Camilla is pictured with King Charles, Prince William and Princess Catherine ahead of The Diplomatic Reception in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace last December

‘She will probably be finding out all about that herself now,’ Mrs Hanan told reporters.

The Queen, she said, had told her that the wooden board was ‘lovely’.

Mrs Hanan said: ‘It was absolutely amazing when it was repaired, I cried my eyes out. I tried to repair it myself, I thought I was going to make it worse. I was upset I couldn’t repair it – my husband could’ve repaired it.’

Her husband was 72 when he lost his life to prostate cancer.

‘We had two years of bliss and two years of hell,’ Mrs Hanan said. ‘Then he was gone.’

Camilla was also presented with a gift that she said would make her husband, the King, ‘delighted’, as she met volunteer groups at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings

Bill Stanley, 77, had been waiting since 1958 for an opportunity to pass to the Royal Family a photo he had taken of Lord Mountbatten, when he was just 12 years old.

Mr Stanley, who met the Queen with members of the Royal Volunteering Service, said: ‘When I was 12 I spent the day with my father and Lord Mountbatten and he said would I like to a picture of him, because I had a camera around my neck.

‘I took a photo and I have been waiting for an opportunity to give it to a member of the Royal Family ever since.’

When he handed the black-and-white portraits to the Queen, he said, she told him: ‘My husband will be delighted.’

Volunteers from the Shrewsbury Interfaith Forum used their meeting with the Queen as an opportunity to pass on their best wishes to her husband, the King, and the Princess of Wales. She thanked them warmly.