That time King Charles met Johnny Cash in a Fredericton locker room

As people around the world were focused on the Royal Family last week for Queen Elizabeth's funeral, one of many old photos shared online was a 1970s-era snapshot of King Charles in an unlikely encounter with the late country music star Johnny Cash.

The singer's daughter, Rosanne Cash, posted the picture on Twitter, and several media outlets in the United Kingdom and the United States reproduced it, some describing it as "never-before-seen."

It probably looked familiar to some New Brunswickers, however, because the picture was taken in Fredericton, in a  locker room at the Lady Beaverbrook Rink.

And if any one person was responsible for bringing Cash and the then-Prince together in such an impromptu, serendipitous way, it may have been Libby Burnham.

Burnham, now the retired chancellor of Acadia University, and also retired from a career as a lawyer in Toronto, was, at the time the picture was taken, chief strategist and organizer for the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick.

She hails from Carleton County and worked closely with former premier Richard Hatfield, who was from nearby Hartland.

Burnham remembers the occasion quite clearly. She's kept her own set of photos from the evening in an album, and, as her daughter will attest, it's become part of family lore.

It all went down in May 1975, when Charles was in New Brunswick with the British military, according to material from the New Brunswick Public Archives.

The 26-year-old prince and navy helicopter pilot was taking part in training exercises at Base Gagetown, indicates a caption from a newspaper photograph.

While he was in the area, recounted Burnham, someone invited Charles to attend a concert at the Playhouse by the New Brunswick Symphony.

It was "a struggling orchestra," she said, and the prince was well known as "a big supporter of arts and culture."

He agreed to attend, she said, with the stipulation that it would have to be an informal occasion. Since the purpose of his visit was military work, he didn't have formal attire with him.

"He came in a navy blazer and green flannels," said Burnham, who met the young and single Charles for the first time at a reception before the orchestral performance.

He looked like he was growing a beard, she said.

"He was very charming, easy to talk to, engaging, very relaxed."

"We talked about his flying because he was flying a helicopter and then he asked me, 'What is there to do in this area?' So I mentioned to him that there was an upcoming concert that Johnny Cash and June Carter were going to be performing."

He was "quite interested," in that, said Burnham.

"And then he asked me if I was going and I said, 'Yes,' and I told him that the premier would be taking a party of people to the event."

No one knew if he'd actually be at the concert, said Burnham.

Just before it started, she said, he arrived at the rink with about eight of his fellow officers.

"I'm presuming one of them was a bodyguard."

"They just came in quietly," she said, "and sat up in the bleachers."

The immortalized meeting with the stars of the show came at intermission.

Arrangements had been made for the premier and some of his guests to go backstage, said Burnham — "backstage" being, in fact, one of rooms normally used for lacing up skates and changing in and out of hockey gear.

Hatfield had an invitation delivered to the prince to join his group, she said.

The premier would have been "thrilled," to have Charles at the concert, said Burnham, being both a strong monarchist and a music lover.

The prince went, she said, accompanied by one other person.

Once again, "Charles was very relaxed," she said, while chatting with Cash, Carter, Hatfield, the poet Alden Nowlan and a few other people.

"It was very gracious of him to do it," said Burnham.

Cash and Carter were both obviously very excited to meet the prince, said Burnham.

She didn't hear the conversation between the royal and the country singers, "but it was certainly relaxed and chatty."

She heard later that Cash mentioned it to the crowd at his next concert, saying it gave him chills to play for royalty for the first time.

It wasn't until intermission that they learned Charles was in the audience, said Burnham.

"Nor did anyone else in the audience" know he was there, she said, "unless he was recognized by some of the people that he was seated near."

"One of the great things," about Charles's time in the province, said Burnham, was "that the New Brunswick people really respected his privacy."

He and his military colleagues went around to various local establishments, she said, — a Chinese restaurant in Fredericton, a tea house in Welsford, a lodge in Mactaquac — "and nobody bothered him."

"There were no selfies," back then, she observed.

"I think he really, really enjoyed it."

It's probably been rare in his lifetime, said Burnham, that he's had "that kind of relaxed informality."

Cash was also given the royal treatment by the province.

As the late Win Hackett wrote in Remembering Richard: An informal portrait of Richard Hatfield by his friends, family and colleagues, the musician ran into some trouble the day after the show, when he was trying to cross the provincial border into Quebec, to get to his next tour date in the Toronto area.

At the time there were Sunday restrictions in Quebec on commercial traffic.

Hatfield made some appeals to Quebec officials, and Cash's truck was not only allowed to pass, it was given a police escort.