17.09.

22

Elizabeth II
1926 ˜ 2022
A life in pictures
Part 1

Portrait: Cecil Beaton, 1948

 The Queen and the
Duke of Edinburgh
in Fiji in February
1977, a visit to mark
her Silver Jubilee
Elizabeth II
A P R I L 2 1 , 1 92 6 – S E P T E M B E R 8 , 2 0 2 2
L
ike the vast majority of
people in this country,
I have only ever known one
monarch. When I was born,
in 1959, the Queen had
HUSSEIN/GETTY IMAGES. TIM GRAHAM PHOTO LIBRARY/GETTY IMAGES
already been on the throne
for nearly seven years.
COVER: CECIL BEATON/CAMERA PRESS. THIS SPREAD: ANWAR
That seems a distant era now, a time when
Britain still had the remnants of a fading
Empire and people paid for their shopping
with pounds, shillings and pence. When you
went to the cinema, they played the national
anthem at the end of the film.
I grew up – we all grew up – with the
Queen. When I was a small boy she was this
mystical being, a scarcely human figure who
was to be revered without question.
Later, when I was a teenager, there
was the Silver Jubilee. Some people held
street parties; others bought the Sex Pistols’
2 The Times Magazine
God Save the Queen. I think I still have
my copy.
It took me nearly another 20 years
to meet the Queen. In 1994 I covered her
historic tour of Russia. In those days, the
Queen used to have a drinks party – or
a reception, as the palace prefers to term
it – for the press accompanying her on
overseas visits. It would have been one of
the highlights of the tour. Unfortunately,
I managed to miss it, as I was too busy filing
copy for the London Evening Standard, the
newspaper I worked for at the time. Standing
up the Queen was not a good start to my
career as a royal correspondent.
The following year I went with the
Queen on her equally historic tour of South
Africa, where she was greeted with such
warmth and enthusiasm by Nelson Mandela
that it filled us all with optimism about the
PART 2
TOMORROW
In The
Sunday Times
future. While we were in Cape Town, there
was a reception on board the Royal Yacht
Britannia. This time I did manage to turn
up. As we mingled on deck, drinking gin
and tonic in the warm sunshine, the Queen’s
press secretary, Charles Anson, promised me
that he would introduce me to the Queen.
That would be good, I told him, but I was
lying – I was terrified. I had heard too many
stories of people making a fool of themselves
in front of the Queen – not knowing what
to say or being on the receiving end of a
withering put-down – that I could see no
reason why I would want to put myself
through such a stressful experience.
Fortunately for me, and no doubt for
the Queen, the urbane and laid-back Anson
had plenty of other things on his mind
that afternoon and forgot all about me.
Instead, I watched on as a gaggle of royal

correspondents – including Jennie Bond
of the BBC – hovered around her, hanging
on her every word, all desperate to impress.
They were all experienced journalists who
had been doing the job for years, and had
seen the Queen at close quarters dozens of
times before, but still they were all in awe
of her.
That awe never went away, not for any of
us. Decades ago, a kind of reverential aura
surrounded the Queen. Over the years, it
changed; we all changed. Britain became a
less deferential nation. The monarchy was
no longer just a linchpin of our constitution;
it was also a daily soap opera which kept
millions entertained through the front
pages of the tabloid press. People questioned
whether we needed a monarchy at all.
With every crisis that engulfed the royal
family – Charles and Diana, Prince Andrew,
Harry and Meghan – there were predictions
that the imminent demise of the whole
institution was just around the corner.
And yet it survived.
Much has been made of how much the
world has changed during the Queen’s long
decades on the throne, how the jet age gave
way to the space age, which in turn gave
way to the internet age. On just about every
level – technological, social, political – the
Royal reporters saw
the Queen at close
quarters dozens of
times, but still they
were all in awe of her
Britain of the Queen’s last years was almost
unrecognisable from the austere postwar
Britain of 1952.
At the heart of it all, the Queen’s role
changed too. Once seemingly possessed of
a kind of royal infallibility, she changed her
style as the country changed around her.
She did walkabouts and spoke to ordinary
people instead of just cutting ribbons and
unveiling plaques. And, slowly, the public
learnt what her friends had always known:
that the Queen had a sense of humour.
When the first James Bond film, Dr No,
was released in 1962, audiences would never
have believed that, 50 years later, the Queen
would take part in a televised stunt with
007 in which she appeared to parachute out
of a helicopter for the opening ceremony of
the London Olympics.
The Queen
sheltering from the
rain while presenting
prizes at the Royal
Windsor Horse
Show, May 14, 1978
Four years later she joined Harry in
making a spoof video with Barack and
Michelle Obama for the Invictus Games,
complete with mike drop. After filming her
segment the Queen said, “They should ask
me to do things like this more often.”
It has been a subtle evolution. The Queen
did not do precipitate change. But over the
years, one thing emerged above all else: her
humanity. Her “annus horribilis” speech of
1992, in which she gave a wry acknowledgment
of the travails that had been besetting her,
was a pivotal moment as it began to dawn on
people that the head of state was also a woman
of flesh and blood, with human feelings.
If anything, her much quoted speech in
Cape Town on her 21st birthday, in which
she dedicated her life to “the service of our
great imperial family”, grew in significance
over the years. By the end of her reign, that
great imperial family had long gone, but the
sincerity of her words continued to ring as
true as they did in 1947.
In that speech she spoke of whether her life
would be long or short. In the end it was long,
longer than anyone might have anticipated.
We grew up with the Queen; we grew old
with her. The second Elizabethan era has
finally drawn to a close. By Valentine Low,
the Times royal correspondent
The Times Magazine 3
 The Q U E E N
1920
T
he Queen’s mother – the
Duchess of York, as she was
then – did not like White
Lodge, the home in Richmond
Park that King George V
and Queen Mary had
designated for them. It was
cold and uncomfortable, with inadequate
electric lighting and dubious plumbing.
Understandably, the duchess decided to give
birth to her first child at 17 Bruton Street, the
Mayfair home of her parents, the Earl and
Countess of Strathmore.
Although the new baby was not in direct
line of succession – she was third in line
to the throne, as her uncle, the Prince of
Wales, was still expected to marry and have
children – royal tradition still dictated that a
SPEAIGHT/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES, MARCUS ADAMS/PAUL POPPER/POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES,
government minister should be in attendance:
POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES, © HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
the home secretary, Sir William Joynson-
Hicks, waited in the next room while the
duchess went through a long, difficult labour.
Afterwards, the official bulletin referred to
the medical complications and “a certain line
of treatment”, which was the nearest anyone
came to saying in public that she was delivered
by caesarean section.
She was born in the early hours of
Wednesday, April 21, 1926, 13 days before the
start of the General Strike. It was over, however,
by the time of her christening on May 29
in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace.
The font Queen Victoria had used for her
children’s christenings was brought up from
Windsor Castle, and Elizabeth was dressed
in the Honiton lace christening robe that had
been used for all Victoria’s children.
The most important figure in her young
life was not her mother but her nurse, Clara
Knight, who was known to Elizabeth – and,
later, Margaret – as Allah. When Elizabeth
was just nine months old her parents went on
an official tour of Australia and New Zealand
that lasted six months. Her first birthday came
and went without them.
Later, Elizabeth would do the same thing,
leaving Prince Charles and Princess Anne
4 The Times Magazine
s
With her parents on
a six-month official
tour, Elizabeth’s first
birthday came and
went without them
behind when she and Prince Philip went on
a Commonwealth tour that lasted nearly
six months.
While Elizabeth’s parents were away, her
nanny tried to keep parental memories alive.
She would show the baby a picture of her
mother, and taught her to say “Mummy”.
Shuffled between grandparents, she spent
three months at Buckingham Palace, where
she would be brought down every afternoon
to have tea with the king and queen. “Here
comes the bambino!” Queen Mary would cry
out with delight.
For most of her childhood, home was
145 Piccadilly, a five-storey house that
overlooked Green Park. Elizabeth was a neat
girl: her toy ponies were always lined up in an
orderly row. She even had a small red dustpan
and brush, with which she was encouraged to
keep her room tidy.
She saw a lot of her grandparents, and
George V seemed to enjoy playing with her in
a way he had not done with his own children.
He would call her Lilibet, in imitation of her
attempts to say her own name. The nickname
stuck, and would later be given another lease
of life when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
chose it as the name for their daughter.
In 1928, when she was two and a half,
Winston Churchill – then chancellor – met
her while staying at Balmoral, which would
become the Queen’s favourite summer retreat,
and where she died on September 8. In a letter
he described her as “a character”. He wrote,
“She has an air of authority and reflectiveness
astonishing in an infant.” Valentine Low
LEFT A formal portrait
of the Duke and
Duchess of York
– the future King
George VI and
Queen Elizabeth
– with their first child,
Princess Elizabeth.

FAR LEFT, TOPThe

Duchess of York
with Elizabeth in
May 1926, a month
after her birth at
17 Bruton Street
in Mayfair.

CENTRE A childhood
portrait of Elizabeth
at around the age of
two, taken in 1928.
The photographer,
Marcus Adams,
would still be taking
royal portraits in
the Fifties.

BOTTOM The three-

year-old Elizabeth
being taken for a
stroll in her pram
in Green Park,
central London,
by her nanny,
October 13, 1929.

Additional reporting:
Chris Riley,
Hannah Evans

The Times Magazine 5

 The Q U E E N
1930
T
he Thirties were a decade of
tumultuous change for the
young Princess Elizabeth. The
family of three became four
– “We four,” as her father
used to say – with the arrival
of Princess Margaret on
August 21, 1930. The sisters were close,
but very different in temperament. While
Elizabeth was dutiful, her younger sister was
more extrovert: one royal writer described
her as “less solemn, less conscientious and
altogether less well mannered”.
Marion Crawford, the princess’s young
Scottish governess, provided her education:
two and a half hours a week of poetry,
LISA SHERIDAN/STUDIO LISA/GETTY IMAGES, FRED AND HUBERT THURSTEN/CAMERA PRESS, CAMERA PRESS, AP PHOTO/JIM PRINGLE
literature and grammar, half an hour on
the Bible, two hours each on history and
arithmetic, and half an hour on geography.
That was the mornings; in the afternoon,
there would be dancing, drawing and music
lessons. It was not a taxing regime.
Crawfie, as she was known – who later got
into trouble for writing a memoir – did her
best to show the two princesses a life beyond
the palace gates. After Elizabeth expressed
a hankering to go on the Underground (“Oh
dear,” she said wistfully, walking past Hyde
Park Corner one day, “what fun it must be to
ride in those trains”), she took them for a trip
on the Tube. The princesses bought their own
tickets. Afterwards, they visited a café, where
they got shouted at by the waitress for leaving
the teapot behind at the counter.
Before the abdication of Edward VIII,
Elizabeth could have looked forward to an
undemanding life as one of the lesser stars in the
royal firmament: one who would shine brightly
when she was young, to be sure, but a figure
whose importance would diminish as time
passed and the king had his own family. The
Abdication put paid to all that. A reluctant
Duke of York became King George VI, and
the family’s life changed irrevocably.
Elizabeth did not need anyone to tell her
that it meant she would one day accede to
the throne herself. “Poor you,” said Margaret.
6 The Times Magazine
s
‘What?’ Elizabeth said
when told the family
now had to move to
Buckingham Palace.
‘You mean for ever?’
The changes to their life were immediate,
and not entirely welcome. When Crawfie
told Elizabeth that they would have to move
into Buckingham Palace, she stared at her in
horror. “What?” she said. “You mean for ever?”
For the Coronation, Elizabeth and
Margaret were dressed in ermine cloaks and
coronets that had been made especially for
them. Elizabeth was deeply moved by the
whole occasion, and wrote an account of it.
“I thought it was all very, very wonderful and
I expect the Abbey did too. The arches and
beams at the top were covered with a sort of
haze of wonder as Papa was crowned, at least
I thought so.”
In 1937 it dawned on the parents of the
future queen that they needed to broaden her
education, and she was sent for tutorials on the
British constitution with Sir Henry Marten,
vice-provost of Eton. “Crawfie,” she said when
she saw the books lining his rooms, “do you
mean to tell me he has read them all?”
In July 1939 the royal family paid a visit to
the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. Someone
was needed to entertain the princesses for the
afternoon and Lord Mountbatten, who was
part of the royal party, came up with his
nephew, Prince Philip of Greece, who was
a naval cadet. Philip, who was not unknown
to the royal family, showed off by jumping
over a tennis net: the 13-year-old Elizabeth
could not keep her eyes off him. As George
VI’s official biographer, Sir John Wheeler-
Bennett, wrote, “This was the man with
whom Princess Elizabeth had been in love
from their first meeting.” Valentine Low
 Princess Elizabeth
aged six, with her
sister, still a toddler,
riding a rocking horse
at St Paul’s Walden
Bury, Hertfordshire
– their mother’s
childhood home
– in August 1932

LEFT The princesses

– Elizabeth now aged
ten, her sister, five
– with their mother
at Royal Lodge
in Windsor in the
summer of 1936.

RIGHT Princess
Elizabeth leaving
the Royal Albert
Hall after a concert
featuring a choir of
1,000 schoolchildren
and the London
Symphony Orchestra,
May 6, 1938.

The Times Magazine 7

 The year before the death of their
father, George V, in January 1936,
and the ensuing Abdication crisis,
the Prince of Wales is pictured with
his younger brother, the Duke of York,
and Elizabeth and Margaret

ABOVEIn March 1933, a few weeks before she turned seven, Princess Elizabeth was photographed
on an early spring stroll with two nannies through Hyde Park. Princess Margaret is in the pram.
GETTY IMAGES, AP PHOTO, POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

ABOVE February 6, 1935, and Princess Elizabeth went to the Lyceum Theatre in London – famous
for its annual pantomimes – with her mother to see a performance of Dick Whittington.

8 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 9
 The young princesses attend an inspection
of the Royal Company of Archers at the
Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, with
their mother, talking to Lord Elphinstone,
and far right, their father, July 1937
FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES, WATFORD/MIRRORPIX/GETTY IMAGES

10 The Times Magazine

ABOVE The situation
in Europe was
growing more tense
by the day – by the
evening of March 15,
1939, when this was
taken, Hitler had
entered Prague – but
the princesses were
still allowed the
occasional treat, such
as this day out at
London Zoo.

LEFT At just 12,

Elizabeth was already
attending functions
on her own, in
preparation for her
later official duties.

The Times Magazine 11

RIGHT The princesses
Elizabeth and
Margaret arrive with
their parents at the
Royal Tournament
– at this time, 1936,
the largest military
tattoo in the world
– which was held at
Olympia, London,
from May 7-23. One
of the images taken
during the visit
would later, following
the Duke of York’s
accession to the
throne, feature in
a popular series of
cigarette cards.
TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

12 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 13
 The Q U E E N
1940
A
fter the war broke out,
London was deemed no
longer safe for the two
princesses, and they moved
to Windsor: first to Royal
Lodge, then to the castle
itself. Although Elizabeth
and Margaret effectively disappeared from
public view, they made their own contribution
to the war effort with a radio broadcast aimed
at children in October 1940, during the height
of the Blitz. The 14-year-old Elizabeth did all
the talking, but Margaret joined her in wishing
their listeners good night. Some considered
it mawkish, but Joyce Grenfell wrote to her
mother: “It was one of the loveliest things I’ve
ever heard.”
As she grew older, Elizabeth begged her
father to let her play a more active role in the
war. Eventually he capitulated, and in March
1945 she joined the Auxiliary Territorial
Service, learning how to drive and repair a
truck. Her ATS uniform came into good use
on VE Day when, after no fewer than six
appearances with her parents on the balcony
of Buckingham Palace, she pulled her cap
low down over her eyes and went out with
Margaret and a group of friends to join the
crowds on the street. At one point she joined
the throng outside the palace shouting, “We
want the king! We want the king!” It was,
she said later, “one of the most memorable
nights of my life”.
Meanwhile, she never forgot the handsome
young naval cadet she had met just before
the war. Philip would write to her, and when
he was on leave he would come and stay at
Windsor Castle. Once, when Elizabeth learnt
he was coming to see one of the pantomimes
that she and Margaret would put on at
Christmas, she said to her governess: “Who
BASSANO/CAMERA PRESS
do you think is coming to see us act, Crawfie?”
By 1946 there was little doubt about their
relationship. People got so used to seeing
Philip around that on one of Elizabeth’s
public engagements the crowd shouted,
“Where’s Philip?”
14 The Times Magazine
s
The Norman Hartnell
wedding dress was
made possible by a
special allowance of
clothing ration coupons
The king wanted her to wait, however,
and Elizabeth came to an agreement with her
father: she would accompany her parents on a
tour of South Africa, and if she still wanted to
marry Philip on her return, he would give his
consent. While she was there she made a radio
broadcast in Cape Town on her 21st birthday,
in which she dedicated herself to the Empire.
It would remain one of the most famous
speeches of her life. “I declare before you
all that my whole life, whether it be long or
short, shall be devoted to your service and the
service of our great imperial family to which
we all belong.”
She and Philip married at Westminster
Abbey on November 20, 1947. With rationing
still in force, and the country only just out
of a fuel crisis, it was a much needed moment
of national celebration. Elizabeth’s wedding
dress, which was designed by Norman
Hartnell, was made possible thanks to a
special allowance of 200 clothing coupons
– the usual wartime allowance for a family
of four was 48 coupons a year.
It was not quite, however, the great
joining of two families that a wedding of
this nature normally implies. Philip’s sisters,
who all married Germans, were not invited.
But a host of crowned heads – and former
crowned heads – appeared from all over
Europe and beyond, including the kings
of Norway, Romania and Iraq, and the
king and queen of Denmark. As Princess
Margaret put it, “People who had been
starving in little garrets all over Europe
suddenly reappeared.” Valentine Low
Princess Elizabeth and the
Duke of Edinburgh pictured at
Buckingham Palace on their
wedding day, November 20,
1947. The party includes the
King and Queen, front row,
third and second from right,
Princess Margaret, who was
one of the bridesmaids (back
row, fourth from right) and
the duke’s best man, David
Mountbatten, the 3rd Marquess
of Milford Haven and a fellow
Dartmouth graduate

The Times Magazine 15

 IWM, LISA SHERIDAN/STUDIO LISA/GETTY IMAGES

16 The Times Magazine

LEFT Princess
Elizabeth during her
time in the Auxiliary
Territorial Service.
She joined in
March 1945 as
a 2nd subaltern
and trained as
a truck driver
and mechanic.

RIGHT In the spring

of 1942, Princesses
Elizabeth and
Margaret were
pictured at Royal
Lodge, Windsor,
with one of their
Lhasa apso dogs.

BELOW The 15-year-old

Princess Elizabeth
– who had joined
the Girl Guides as an
11-year-old – learns
how to tie a knot in
Frogmore, Windsor,
April 1942.

The Times Magazine 17

 BELOW The princesses were back in Dartmouth, where Elizabeth had first met Philip, in
1944, pictured here aboard a converted motor torpedo boat used by local Sea Rangers.
LISA SHERIDAN/STUDIO LISA/GETTY IMAGES, POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

LEFT Accompanied
by her younger sister,
the princess makes
her first broadcast
at the age of 14 in
October 1940. ‘When
peace comes,’ she
told the young
people of the
Commonwealth,
‘remember it
will be for us, the
children of today,
to make the world of
tomorrow a better
and happier place.’

18 The Times Magazine

BELOW In February 1943, the princesses released a carrier pigeon with a message for
Lady Baden-Powell, the Chief Guide, to mark her late husband’s birthday.

LEFT The King,

Queen Elizabeth
and their daughters
at Royal Lodge in
Windsor, July 8, 1946.

RIGHT Three weeks

before their wedding
in November 1947,
Princess Elizabeth
and Prince Philip
visited Clydebank
in Scotland, where
they were presented
with a Singer sewing
machine made
in the town.

The Times Magazine 19

 ABOVEPrincesses Elizabeth (left) and Margaret (running) play deck
games with the crew of HMS Vanguard during the royal family’s
three-month trip to South Africa in early 1947.
POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES, GETTY IMAGES

ABOVE The newlyweds’ 1947 honeymoon was a two-leg trip ending in

Scotland. But first they visited Earl Mountbatten’s Broadlands estate in
Hampshire, where they are seen here looking at their wedding photos.

20 The Times Magazine

Set up by their grandfather, the King George’s
Fund for Sailors – now known as the Seafarers’
Charity – held regular fundraising balls, including
this one at the Dorchester in May 1948, attended
by the princesses and the Duke of Edinburgh

The Times Magazine 21

 Their father had
been king for nearly
a decade when this
portrait of the family
was taken in the
summer of 1946 in
the grounds of Royal
Lodge, Windsor

LEFT In the Forties,

the Sandringham
estate was turned
over to agricultural
production in aid of
the war effort, and
in August 1943 the
royal family toured
the fields ahead of
the harvest.
LISA SHERIDAN/STUDIO LISA/GETTY IMAGES, KEYSTONE/HULTON
ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES, REG SPELLER/FOX PHOTOS/GETTY

RIGHT Princess
IMAGES, ANL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Elizabeth rides
towards Buckingham
Palace after the
Trooping the
Colour ceremony in
Horse Guards Parade
on June 12, 1947.

22 The Times Magazine

Before her marriage, Princess Elizabeth,
20 in this photograph, had her own
private apartment within Buckingham
Palace, and this is her sitting room.
Just visible to the bottom left is the
large desk at which she worked

LEFT In June 1948, the

duke played cricket
for the Windsor
Great Park team
– made up of
workers on the royal
estate – against a
side from Bicester,
Oxfordshire. This
was taken just after
he had been batting,
dismissed for seven,
caught in the slips.
He later had a bowl
too, but ended his
spell wicketless.

RIGHT Princess
Elizabeth in the
State Apartments at
Buckingham Palace
in 1946.

The Times Magazine 23

 BELOW Three months away from the tenth anniversary of his accession, King George VI shares a joke with his daughter at Royal Lodge, August 1946.
AP PHOTO, BARON/CAMERA PRESS

24 The Times Magazine

BELOW An official portrait to mark the christening of Prince Charles – now King Charles III – at Buckingham Palace on December 15, 1948.

The Times Magazine 25

 The Q U E E N
1950
T
he decline of the King’s health
meant that Elizabeth and
Philip began to take on an
increasing amount of her
father’s workload. After the
King had an operation to
remove his left lung, the couple
replaced her parents on a five-week tour of
Canada in autumn 1951, leaving Charles and
his new sister, Anne, at home. The tour
included a visit to Washington, where President
Truman said, “When I was a little boy I read
about a fairy princess, and there she is.”
There was another tour the following year,
due to take in Ceylon, Australia and New
Zealand. In early 1952, when Elizabeth and
Philip left for the four-month trip, the King
and Queen came to see them off at the
airport. Photographs show the King looking
gaunt and strained in the cold January wind.
The trip began with a short holiday in Kenya,
where the couple stayed for a night at the
Treetops Hotel. With its viewing platform by
a lake, it was an ideal place to watch big game.
In the early hours of February 6, George VI
HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES, KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES, CAMERA PRESS/YOUSUF KARSH
died in his sleep at Sandringham of a coronary
thrombosis. He was 56 years old. The news
took several hours to reach Elizabeth, of
whom it was famously said that she climbed a
tree a princess and descended it a queen. Not
that she realised it at the time: the first person
to hear the news was her private secretary
Martin Charteris, who picked it up from a
journalist at a nearby hotel. He told Philip’s
equerry, Michael Parker, who in turn told
Philip. He took Elizabeth – still only 25 – into
the garden of Royal Lodge, their main base in
Kenya, and they walked as he broke the news
to her. Pamela Hicks, one of the royal party,
recalled: “One just thought, this poor girl who
really adored her father. They were very close.
And I think I gave her a hug and said how
sorry I was. And then suddenly, I thought, my
God, but she’s Queen!”
Before they returned, Charteris asked her
what she was going to call herself. “My own
name, of course – what else?”
26 The Times Magazine
s
Asked what she was
going to call herself
as queen, she replied,
‘My own name, of
course – what else?’
Back in London, when she was formally
proclaimed Queen at St James’s Palace, she
told the Privy Council: “My heart is too full
for me to say more to you today than that
I shall always work as my father did.”
Within days there was a bitter dispute
over the question of the family’s name. Lord
Mountbatten, Philip’s uncle, had made the
mistake of boasting that the “House of
Mountbatten now reigned”. This promptly ran
into opposition from Queen Mary, the Queen
Mother and the prime minister, Winston
Churchill, who was no fan of Mountbatten.
The Queen, torn between loyalty to her
husband and the royal family, opted for the
latter: the House of Windsor it remained. Philip
complained that his name was taken away.
“I’m nothing but a bloody amoeba,” he said.
The Coronation did not take place until
June 2 the following year. It was the first
time it was televised, an innovation initially
resisted by the palace. It was Britain’s last great
imperial hoorah, a massive celebration that
saw huge crowds line the streets and more
than 8,000 people crammed into Westminster
Abbey. Afterwards, at Buckingham Palace, the
Queen sat down with her crown off while the
four-year-old Prince Charles played hide-and-
seek under the Queen Mother’s robes.
Five months later, the couple departed on
a Commonwealth tour. “Let us recognise how
immeasurable a responsibility rests upon the
shoulders of our young Queen,” Lord Salisbury
told the House of Lords, “for on the personal
loyalties of her peoples the whole future of
a free world may depend.” Valentine Low
LEFT The Queen
arrives back at
Heathrow from
Kenya following the
news of the death
of her father. There
to meet her was
Winston Churchill,
far right, the prime
minister, with
Clement Attlee,
leader of the
opposition, on his
left. Anthony Eden,
the deputy PM at
the time, and Lord
Woolton, who
presided over
meetings of the
Privy Council, were
also in attendance.

FAR LEFT Dressed as a

peeress of the realm
and wearing the
Diadem crown, the
Queen makes her
way to Westminster
Abbey for her
Coronation. Years
later, the royal
commentator
Alastair Bruce asked
her what it was
like to travel in the
gold state coach.
‘Horrible!’ she
replied. ‘It’s not
meant for travelling
in at all. It’s
only sprung
on leather… not
very comfortable.’

LEFT A portrait of
Princess Elizabeth
in 1951 wearing the
Cartier necklace she
was given on her
marriage by the
Nizam of Hyderabad.
The necklace consists
of a long chain
with 38 brilliant
cut diamonds with
an elongated oval
brilliant snap.

The Times Magazine 27

 POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES, GETTY IMAGES

28 The Times Magazine

LEFT Inside Westminster Abbey during the
Coronation. There were 8,251 guests at the
ceremony, including representatives from
129 nations and territories. The Queen wears
the Imperial State Crown, commissioned for
her father’s Coronation, featuring diamonds,
rubies, emeralds and sapphires and weighing
more than 2lb.
ABOVE The Queen Mother, the four-year-old
Prince Charles and Princess Margaret watch
the service at Westminster Abbey.
BELOW The newly crowned Queen returns
to Buckingham Palace carrying the orb and
sceptre that are used at the coronation of
every new sovereign.
The Times Magazine 29
 ABOVE Frank Sinatra is presented to the Queen at the premiere of
Me and the Colonel, a comedy starring Danny Kaye, at the Odeon
in Leicester Square, October 1958.
GETTY IMAGES, DONALD MCKAGUE/CAMERA PRESS, FOX PHOTOS/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES,
TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTD, SLIM AARONS/GETTY IMAGES, REG SPELLER/FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
ABOVE On the bridge of the Gothic – built as a liner, but designated a
royal yacht from 1952 to 1954 – at Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.
30 The Times Magazine
ABOVE RIGHT The Canadian photographer Donald McKague took a series
of portraits of the Queen in December 1958 that were published the
following year – this, a rare colour picture, is among the formal ones.
ABOVEInspecting the men of the newly renamed Queen’s Own Nigeria
Regiment at Kaduna Airport, Nigeria, on her 1956 Commonwealth tour.
 LEFT The major
communications
innovations of her
reign may still have
been decades away
in 1958, when this
was taken, but the
Queen is nonetheless
marking a significant
advance here,
making the first
trunk call on the
Bristol telephone
exchange. The
recipient? The
Lord Provost
of Edinburgh.

RIGHT In his later

years the Duke
of Edinburgh was
renowned for his
carriage driving, but
he only took up that
sport when a ‘dodgy’
wrist, as he referred
to it, curtailed his
polo career. Here
he’s playing in a polo
tournament in 1955,
when as captain of
the Windsor Great
Park team, he led
his side to victory
over India.

The Times Magazine 31

 ABOVE The Queen had corgis or dachshunds most of her adult life,
often both, plus two celebrated dorgi crosses. Here’s she’s pictured at
the Badminton Horse Trials with her mother and a dachshund.
J ESTON/TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTD, CECIL BEATON/CAMERA PRESS, MARCUS ADAMS/CAMERA PRESS,
RAYMOND KLEBOE/PICTURE POST/GETTY IMAGES, JACK EDWARD BARKER/TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTD
ABOVEOn a trip to the Scottish Craft Centre, Edinburgh, on July 12, 1952.
The royal visit to the city was the first by a reigning monarch in 50 years.
32 The Times Magazine
ABOVEThe Queen with her two eldest children, Prince Charles and
Princess Anne, enjoying a relaxed moment during a 1954 photoshoot
with Marcus Adams, whom she had first met when she was a toddler.
ABOVE The Queen with her husband and one of her many corgis
outside Windsor Castle in 1959.
Princess Elizabeth and the two-
year-old Prince Charles pose for
Cecil Beaton in 1950 while playing
in the grounds of Clarence House,
London, where the princess and
her young family had lived since
her marriage three years earlier

The Times Magazine 33

 ABOVEThe Queen at Balmoral in September 1952, with
Prince Charles, three, and Princess Anne, who had
turned two the month before.
LISA SHERIDAN/STUDIO LISA/GETTY IMAGES, BARON/CAMERA PRESS, POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

ABOVE Anne’s christening in October 1950. She wears the

Honiton lace robe worn by more than 60 British royals,
including her mother at her christening in May 1926.

34 The Times Magazine

The royal family at the Badminton Horse
Trials in 1952: seated centrally, from left,
the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret
and the Queen, who is pictured with a
cine camera. She was given her first one
as a young girl and became a proficient
and prolific chronicler of family life

The Times Magazine 35

 The Q U E E N
1960
O
n February 19, 1960, the
Queen gave birth to her third
child, Andrew. Although it had
been ten years since Anne
was born, Andrew’s arrival
was no accident: the Queen
told her private secretary,
Martin Charteris, that she and Philip had been
trying for another child for some time.
While the Queen had been a somewhat
distant parent with Charles and Anne – for all
that she loved them both, and spent time with
them when she could, affairs of state usually
took precedence – by the time Andrew was
born, followed four years later by Edward, she
took time off to be more closely involved with
their upbringing. By then she seemed to be
relaxed around her children. “She was a less
natural mother with Charles and Anne,” one
insider suggested, “whereas she was much more
the besotted parent with Andrew and Edward.”
Her pregnancy with Andrew forced her
to cancel a visit to Ghana, which had recently
become the first of Britain’s tropical African
colonies to achieve independence. Instead she
had taken the unusual step of inviting Ghana’s
leader, Kwame Nkrumah, to Balmoral instead.
The rescheduled visit to Ghana took place
GETTY IMAGES, REGINALD DAVIS/SHUTTERSTOCK, CECIL BEATON/CAMERA PRESS
in November 1961. There was pressure for it
to be cancelled, both because of the threat of
violence – bombs had exploded in Accra the
week before – and political opposition to
Nkrumah’s authoritarianism. But against a
backdrop of growing communist influence in
Africa, the Queen was determined to go ahead,
believing that the visit would play an important
role in holding the Commonwealth together.
It was a great success, even if the Queen’s
turn around the dancefloor with Nkrumah
prompted a South African paper to complain
about “the honoured head of the once mighty
British Empire dancing with black natives of
pagan Africa”. The Ghanaian press hailed her as
“the greatest socialist monarch in the world”.
In the late Sixties the Queen took a
decision that continues to divide opinion to
this day: she cooperated with the creation of a
36 The Times Magazine
s
The documentary
Royal Family was a
huge success, seen by
more than two thirds
of the population
documentary, Royal Family. While the Queen
was initially sceptical – she was not going to
play up for the cameras – her press secretary,
William Heseltine, played an important role in
winning her around.
The film, made by the BBC film-maker
Richard Cawston, portrays a year in the life
of the royal family. There is footage of the
Queen at a Buckingham Palace garden party,
of Charles bicycling through Cambridge as an
undergraduate, of Philip flying a plane. One
of the more famous sequences shows the royal
family enjoying a picnic at Balmoral, with
Philip in charge of the barbecue.
According to Heseltine, Philip found it
harder than the Queen to get used to the
constant presence of the camera crew.
“He was, as is sometimes his wont, a little
impatient with them when they appeared, as
he thought, rather too close for comfort.”
Royal Family was a huge success. It was
shown twice in June 1969, first on the BBC and
then on ITV, and was seen by more than two
thirds of the population. But was it a good idea?
It allowed the royals to be seen as an ordinary
family and, argued many, did the monarchy ABOVECecil Beaton’s 1969 birthday portrait of
significant good. But it also blurred the line the Queen, who wears a pearl and diamond
between the public and the private, and can necklace first given to Queen Victoria and
be seen as opening the doors for an ever one of Queen Mary’s tiaras.
more intrusive media. That is a theory that
is rejected by Heseltine: the media was well TOP President John F Kennedy, in his first few
on its way to becoming a far less respectful months in office, and first lady Jackie Kennedy
institution than it once was, he said. But, as were invited to Buckingham Palace for a state
more than one commentator has pointed out, dinner in June 1961. The president would later
after its initial transmissions, Royal Family has write to Her Majesty, ‘We shall always cherish
not been seen in full since. Valentine Low the memory of that delightful evening.’
Queen Elizabeth and Prince
Charles shelter from the rain
with Princess Margaret and
her husband, Earl Snowdon,
far left, at the Badminton
Horse Trials in 1962

The Times Magazine 37

 RIGHT Originally planned
for 1959, but cancelled when
she became pregnant for the
third time, the Queen’s trip to
Ghana went ahead in 1961. It
was a state visit not without
its controversies or dangers
– there was concern at home
about violence in Accra and
the regime’s growing ties
IAN BERRY/MAGNUM PHOTOS

with the Soviet Union – but

the Queen was not to be
deterred. ‘I am the head of
the Commonwealth,’ she said
at the time, ‘and I am paid
to face any risks that may
be involved.’

38 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 39
 The Queen in 1964, stroking her
favourite horse, Betsy, a brown-
black mare she rode through
the Sixties. This was taken
at Sandringham – the same
photographer, Godfrey Argent,
also took the image opposite…
GODFREY ARGENT/CAMERA PRESS

40 The Times Magazine

…although here, seen out
riding with her corgis the
following year, the location
is Balmoral. The Queen’s
passion for horses was such
that she continued to ride
well into her nineties

The Times Magazine 41

 ABOVE The Queen and Prince Charles at Windsor
on June 20, 1969, less than two weeks before his
investiture as the Prince of Wales.

ABOVE The Queen and family during the Trooping of

the Colour in June 1964. She’s holding baby Edward,
barely three months old, with Prince Andrew, four,
in front of his father.
GETTY IMAGES, FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES, CAMERA PRESS

ABOVE The Queen – from an early age, a keen

archivist of family life – giving the 15-year-old
Princess Anne a lesson in photography.

42 The Times Magazine

The Queen with her
husband and children
at Windsor in 1969

The Times Magazine 43

 The Queen with Prince Charles and Prince Edward, at
ABOVE
Windsor Castle in April 1969.
ANWAR HUSSEIN/GETTY IMAGES,, FOX PHOTOS/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES, GETTY IMAGES

ABOVEHarold Wilson – long considered to be one of the Queen’s

favourite prime ministers – at Buckingham Palace, June 1969.

44 The Times Magazine

On board one of
the Queen’s Flight’s
Andovers following
a trip to Yorkshire, a
scene also captured in
1969’s Royal Family

The Times Magazine 45

 ABOVE The Queen and Prince
Andrew at the Braemar Gathering,
Aberdeenshire, in 1968 – the annual
Highland games that take place
CAMERA PRESS/JOHN SCOTT, HULTON ARCHIVE/KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES, MIRRORPIX VIA GETTY IMAGES

less than ten miles from Balmoral

and include traditional contests
such as caber tossing.

LEFTPrince Charles giving his

youngest brother, the five-year-old
Edward, a ride in a go-kart in
April 1969.

RIGHT The Queen and Prince Philip

visiting Aberfan, south Wales, on
October 29, 1966, eight days after
the mining disaster that killed
116 children and 28 adults when
an avalanche of slurry engulfed
Pantglas Junior School and a
neighbouring row of houses.
The Queen later described her
delay in visiting the village following
the tragedy as the biggest regret
of her reign.

46 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 47
 POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES

48 The Times Magazine

LEFT Captain Bobby Moore receives
the Jules Rimet trophy from the
Queen after England’s 4-2 World
Cup final win over West Germany
at Wembley on July 30, 1966. This
moment, handing Moore the cup,
was one the Queen reflected on more
then five decades later – ‘I saw what
it meant to the players, management
and support staff’ – in a written
message to the current manager,
Gareth Southgate, and his England
side the day before their Euro 2020
final against Italy.

The Times Magazine 49

 A regular attendee at
the Badminton Horse
Trials, the Queen visited
in 1965 with her mother
and two eldest children
ALPHA PRESS, GETTY IMAGES, GERRARD HERBERT WARHURST FOR THE TIMES, FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

50 The Times Magazine

 ABOVEThe Queen with one of her gundogs, Wren, at the 1967 Open
Stake Retriever Trials at Balmoral.

The Queen and her husband watching the competitors at

ABOVE
Badminton in 1968.

ABOVE Visiting the Liberation Monument in Addis Ababa during an ABOVEQueen Victoria once took annual holidays on the Isle of Wight;
official state visit to Ethiopia in February 1965. here her great-great-granddaughter is pictured in Ventnor in 1965.

The Times Magazine 51

 The Q U E E N
1970
I
n 1970 royal tours underwent a
revolution. Until then they had
consisted of the Queen travelling
somewhere, usually by car, then
getting out and meeting whomever
she was supposed to meet. There
was little spontaneity, and not much
chance for the public to see her other than by
waving at the royal car as it passed.
Then the royal walkabout was born. It
started in New Zealand, where the authorities
wanted to find a new format for events that
would allow the public more involvement.
In Wellington, they arranged for the royal
limousine to stop short of an engagement
so the couple could complete the journey on
foot. It went down very well, and in Australia
the Queen was keen to try it again. However,
in Melbourne she faced an unruly crowd
blocking her path. What should I do, she
asked a member of staff. “Walk, Your Majesty,”
they replied. “She faced the crowd and walked
and they let her through. It was after that we
learnt that we had to use crash barriers.”
Five years later, political events in Australia
would lead to one of the most enduring
controversies of her reign. Gough Whitlam’s
government had been rocked by scandals
and by a worsening economic crisis. After
he failed to pass a budget and then opted
not to resign or call an election, the governor-
LICHFIELD ARCHIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES, SERGE LEMOINE/GETTY IMAGES
general, Sir John Kerr – the Queen’s
representative – dismissed him in November
1975. The move was hugely divisive, and threw
a spotlight on the Queen’s constitutional
powers. It also helped fuel the republican
movement in Australia.
The same year Buckingham Palace started
preparations for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee,
which would not take place until two years
later. They were aware that few people knew
what a jubilee was, and were not convinced
that there would be much interest. The wave
of enthusiasm that swept the country took
everyone by surprise, not least the Queen.
The evening before the main celebrations
the Queen lit a bonfire in Windsor that would
52 The Times Magazine
s
‘I am simply amazed,’
said the Queen of the
crowds at her Silver
Jubilee celebrations.
‘I had no idea’
set off a chain of beacons across the country.
Afterwards she was driven to London. The
late-night crowds along the route grew larger
and larger until, at the end of the Mall, the car
could barely turn into Buckingham Palace.
“I am simply amazed,” the Queen said
throughout the celebrations. “I had no idea.”
In 1979 the IRA murdered Lord Mountbatten
with a bomb in his fishing boat off the coast of
Sligo. The Queen was devastated. Later, while
Mountbatten’s daughter Patricia – one of her
oldest friends, who had also been on the boat
– remained in hospital, the Queen invited
Patricia’s 14-year-old son, Timothy Knatchbull,
injured in the blast, and his sister Amanda
to Balmoral. He later remembered “a strange
warm glow that’s never really left me… the
care, the tender loving care that the Queen
[has] as a mum”.
Three months later, in November, Margaret
Thatcher unmasked the art historian Anthony
Blunt in the House of Commons as a former
Soviet spy. The Queen stripped him of his
knighthood a short while later.
She had been told about his betrayal
shortly after he confessed to MI5 in 1964. In
return for his confession, MI5 agreed to keep
his spying a secret and granted him immunity The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh
from prosecution. and their children in the gardens of
After the Queen was told, the palace asked Balmoral during the family’s summer
what it should do about Blunt, who had been break in Scotland in 1972. This was
Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures since 1945. one of a series of portraits taken by
They were advised that he should stay put Patrick Lichfield, the Queen’s first
because any action might alert his former cousin once removed, to mark the
Russian controllers. He was to remain in post couple’s silver wedding anniversary
until 1972. Valentine Low
ABOVE The Queen in London in her Silver Jubilee
year, 1977.

ABOVE The Queen with local children on a state visit

to Mexico in 1975. The Countess of Wessex recently
explained the Queen’s fondness for bright outfits:
‘She needs to stand out,’ she said, ‘for people to be
able to say, “I saw the Queen.” ’

The Times Magazine 53

 LICHFIELD ARCHIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES, PA, HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

54 The Times Magazine

ABOVE The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh wave at the passing
Concorde from the deck of the Royal Yacht Britannia as they near
Barbados in 1977. They would return to the UK on the supersonic
aircraft at the end of their visit to the island.

ABOVEThe Queen’s summer residence, Balmoral, has a number of

rather grand greenhouses and here the royal couple are pictured
inspecting their blooms in 1972.

The Queen and her husband aboard the royal yacht in

LEFT
March 1972 – another in the series of Patrick Lichfield shots
marking the couple’s 25th wedding anniversary.

The Times Magazine 55

 ABOVE At the Guards
Polo Club, Smith’s
Lawn, Windsor, in
June 1973, with the
duke, no longer
playing himself,
umpiring instead.
TIM GRAHAM/GETTY IMAGES, GETTY IMAGES, KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES

RIGHT The Queen

watches Virginia
Wade hold the Venus
Rosewater Dish aloft
after her 4-6, 6-3,
6-1 victory over
Betty Stove in the
1977 Wimbledon
final – until Emma
Raducanu’s triumph
at the 2021 US Open,
the last time a British
woman won a grand
slam singles title.

56 The Times Magazine

ABOVE The president
of Turkey, Cevdet
Sunay, had made a
state visit to the UK
in 1967. Four years
later, in October 1971,
the Queen made a
reciprocal trip to
Turkey. Here she’s
getting a helping
hand as she comes
ashore from a
pontoon; the Duke
of Edinburgh and
Princess Anne are
in the background.

LEFT A Silver Jubilee

walkabout in
Camberwell, south
London, June 1977.

The Times Magazine 57

REGINALD DAVIS/SHUTTERSTOCK, TIM GRAHAM PHOTO LIBRARY VIA GETTY IMAGES, LICHFIELD ARCHIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Princess Anne and the Queen

keep warm in parkas during a
visit to Tuktoyaktuk in Canada’s
Northwest Territories, part of a
ten-day royal tour in July 1970

58 The Times Magazine

ABOVE The Queen with Philip at the Badminton Horse
Trials in April 1970.

ABOVEHer Majesty on her way to Westminster on

November 1, 1971, where she will deliver the Queen’s
Speech at the State Opening of Parliament.

The Times Magazine 59

 ABOVE The Duke of Windsor died of throat cancer in Paris on May 28,
1972. His body was repatriated to the UK, where the duke laid in state
for three days at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, before a private funeral.
Here the Queen is seen leaving that service, followed by his widow, the
Duchess of Windsor, who returned to Paris immediately after the burial.
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES, CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES, LICHFIELD ARCHIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES

ABOVE The Queen dances with Gerald Ford – who had become US
president on Richard Nixon’s resignation – on a trip to America in 1976.

RIGHT Lichfield’s silver wedding photographs frequently captured the

Queen in, if not unguarded, certainly more relaxed and intimate
moments, as here, with her dogs on the royal family’s summer holiday
to Balmoral in 1971.

60 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 61
 ABOVEThe Queen at the Royal Windsor Horse
ABOVE Sitting with five of her corgis – she had more than 30 over the years – and two ladies-in- Show – believed to be one of her favourite
waiting, the Queen watches an equestrian event in May 1973 at Home Park, Windsor. events – on May 11, 1979.
PHOTO LIBRARY VIA GETTY IMAGES, ANWAR HUSSEIN/GETTY IMAGES
POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES, TIM GRAHAM

ABOVE To mark 25 years on the throne, the Queen not only travelled extensively in this country, visiting 36 counties in the UK, but
also further afield, taking in Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Canada and parts of the Caribbean, among other destinations.
Here the Queen, wearing a traditional feather cloak, meets Maoris in New Zealand on February 1, 1977.

62 The Times Magazine

The Queen, Prince Philip,
Prince Andrew and the
Queen Mother are joined by
Princess Margaret, the Earl of
Snowdon and their daughter,
Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones,
at Badminton in 1973

The Times Magazine 63

 ABOVEHer Majesty at Badminton in 1971 with
Princess Margaret.

LEFTThe Queen explaining the Trooping the

Colour ceremony to Prince Edward in 1972,
at Buckingham Palace.
REGINALD DAVIS/SHUTTERSTOCK, PA, LICHFIELD ARCHIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES

RIGHT The Ghillies’ Ball was an integral part of

the Queen’s trips to Balmoral, only very rarely
cancelled (2014’s didn’t take place as it fell on
the same day as the Scottish independence
referendum) and one of September’s highlights
for the monarch and her staff. The Queen,
always an enthusiastic dancer – she’s seen
here at 1971’s event – was once described
by a cousin as having ‘great rhythm’.

64 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 65
 ABOVE LEFT The Queen
embarked on more
than 90 official tours,
visits and other
engagements during
her Silver Jubilee
year. Here livery-
clad coachmen
accompany the state
coach taking her to
one 1977 celebration.

TOP RIGHT On June 7,

1977 – a special
Silver Jubilee
bank holiday – the
Queen attended a
celebratory service at
BACK COVER: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES. THIS SPREAD: KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES,

St Paul’s Cathedral
before walking
to the Guildhall,
pictured here, for
FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES, ANWAR HUSSEIN/GETTY IMAGES, PA

a Corporation of
London lunch.

RIGHT The Queen, the

Duke of Edinburgh
and their sons on
holiday in Balmoral
– a royal residence
since 1852, when first
acquired by Prince
Albert – in 1979.

66 The Times Magazine

 The Queen, sitting next to
Prince Edward, chats to her
eldest sons as they watch an
event at the 1976 Montreal
Olympic Games on July 19,
1976. Two days earlier, she had
officially opened the Games

Although there were a number of aircraft

in the Queen’s Flight, the royal family also
flew on Concorde. On November 2, 1977,
the Queen returned to London on it from
Barbados, the final stop of the West Indies
leg of her Silver Jubilee tour – not just
Concorde’s first trip to that island, but the
Queen’s maiden Concorde flight n

© Times Newspapers Ltd, 2022. Published and licensed by Times Newspapers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF (020 7782 5000). Printed by Prinovis UK Ltd, Liverpool. Not to be sold separately.
Elizabeth II
1926 ˜ 2022

Princess Elizabeth, January 1929