GULF SHORES, Ala. — Ralph Gilges makes no bones about it.

“I am so in love with her, (his wife, Cheryl) I took her to meet the Queen of England.”

Lest you start searching “Burke’s Peerage” for the Gilges family, relax. Ralph came to this country from what is now Rhodesia and Cheryl is from Missouri. They currently make their home in Gulf Shores.

But the chance to get close to Queen Elizabeth II was too good to pass up. So the Gilges became “royal gate crashers” of a sort.

“We went to Royal Ascot,” said Ralph, referring to a set of horse races held at Ascot Racecourse, a few miles from Windsor Palace. Queen Elizabeth attends these races, watching from the Royal Enclosure, making Ascot the place to be. At least if you want to rub shoulders with royalty. And maybe see some horse racing.

“So I was in my top hat and morning coat,” said Ralph, who warned Cheryl, who was in a large de riguer hat and dress, not to say anything. Somehow, the two managed to get over from their area (you need someone who has been in the Royal Enclosure four years to sponsor you for tickets) to the Enclosure. They wound up a short distance from the queen.

The pair did not talk to her (protocol says the sovereign must speak first) but Cheryl says that Elizabeth “smiled at us.”

Ralph noted the queen was wearing a yellow dress and expertly handled all the bets for her party.

Cheryl had another memory.

“My hat blew off,” she said.

“Right onto the racetrack as the horses were coming,” recalled Ralph.

Cheryl recalls stepping onto the track to retrieve her hat. She stood there, hat in hand, as the horses thundered by.

“Then this Beefeater (Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign’s Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary) in full costume tells me, ‘Madam, you will wear your hat,’” Cheryl said.

Needless to say, Cheryl replaced her hat and the couple got out of the Enclosure without further difficulty.

“They would have thrown me in jail,” chuckled Ralph.

That’s just one of the adventures the couple has had. Ralph, a mining engineer, emigrated to this country to work and became a United States citizen in 1985. Cheryl was a middle school teacher and a counselor at a state facility for disturbed adolescents in Mississippi. The two met through mutual friends.

The pair devote some of their retirement to volunteering. Cheryl works in the food pantry for the Christian Service Center, keeps her mile of beach clean and helps out wherever she can.

“I started (at the food pantry) right after Hurricane Ivan,” said Cheryl. “I brought some canned goods, and then started working in the food pantry.”

The CSC provides a variety of services to people on the coast, but Cheryl likes working in the pantry, preparing food baskets.

“I felt like I have the time, and I can help people who need food,” she said. She also collects trash from a section of beach, and is pleased to report that there has been a “gradual improvement” in the amount of trash in the area.

Ralph, who was introduced as a boy in Africa to the idea that conserving species makes ecological and economic sense, has volunteered at a variety of organizations. He is the president of the Friends of Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. One of the main things the group has done is help get the sea turtle rescue group “Share the Beach” off the ground.

“I’ve always been involved with animals,” Ralph said.

“I’ve never thought about it,” he replied when asked why he volunteers. “I am happy to do it and I like to be active”.

Ralph got involved with Friends of Bon Secour when he went in to complain about something he’d seen on the beach.

“That was a two-hour meeting,” he recalled. When the meeting was over, he found himself at the helm of the group.

While now working mostly behind the scenes, he recalls last year’s oil spill. It was important to make sure that as many of the eggs laid on the beach were found before they could be crushed under beach-cleaning equipment and transferred to oil-free sites so the turtles could have a chance to grow up.

While it’s not certain the turtles will return to Alabama to lay their own eggs, saving the endangered species has its own rewards.

And was a lot of work.

“We had around 350 volunteers ahead of the beach-cleaning apparatus. If the volunteers saw turtle signs, the whole thing stopped,” he said.