A CHARITY boss chatted to the Queen about their previous meeting when she collected her MBE.

Abida Iqbal, chairman of Redbridge Disabled Women’s Welfare Association, was included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her dedication to charity.

The group provides activities and help for elderly and disabled people in the borough.

Mrs Iqbal has also provided food for guests at Redbridge Night Shelter, now in Mansfield

Road, Ilford, since 2003 and was made a trustee in 2007.

She travelled to Buckingham Palace earlier this month to collect her honour.

But it was not the first time Mrs Iqbal has been in royal company - the Queen presented her with a certificate when she visited her hometown in Pakistan in 1961.

Mrs Iqbal said: “People said I must mention it to her.

“So when she said congratulations I said we have met before.

“She asked how and said excellent when I told her.

“I was very happy.”

The dedicated peace campaigner, 60, said she would continue volunteering.

She said: “For how long I will carry on I don’t know but I feel like it’s something I have to do.”