Queen Elizabeth’s life was one documented on film and in photos from the moment she was born (Picture: ROTA/Getty Images)
When the guest of honour at a private dinner party during the 1950s was the newly crowned Queen, it posed a delicate problem for her host.
Singer Maurice Chevalier, who was crooning in the corner at the gathering in Knightsbridge, had more songs to sing but they had fruity lyrics – certainly not the type to be sung in front of a monarch.
The host decided they had no choice but to approach the young Queen Elizabeth and ask her directly if she minded. Her response, as she fixed him with a steely glaze, was simply: ‘I’m married to a sailor. Tell him to sing on!’
Just weeks later, the Queen was at another royal engagement in Bolton, where she chatted to the crowds who had waited to see her.
Among them was a flustered teenage mother struggling with a crying baby. Flushed with embarrassment and tearing up, the mum stammered: ‘I’m so sorry, I’m just so sorry.’
As she shot a smile at the woman, the Queen cheerfully told her, ‘Don’t worry, help is at hand… Philip – take the baby!’ A beaming Prince Philip took the child, while the Queen softly assured the mother not to worry. ‘We know what it’s like,’ she knowingly added.
Moments like these all paint a fascinating tapestry of our unseen Queen: kind, practical and with a surprisingly common touch. A little girl who once longed to be a farmer’s wife but who grew up to become Britain’s longest-serving monarch.
Here we bring you endearing snapshots of her life – and the extraordinary stories behind them.
Born by caesarean section at 2.40am on April 21, 1926, she was named Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. Her mother wrote later that the six-month-old baby ‘spends the whole day taking her shoes off and sucking her toes!’ (Picture: The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images/Hulton Archive)Elizabeth was sent for swimming lessons in a London pool, with other girls recalling she handed out sweets after lessons, making sure nobody was left out. In 1941, aged 14, she was the first young person in the Commonwealth to achieve the Royal Life Saving Society Junior Respiration Award (Picture: Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Devoted sisters Elizabeth and Margaret pictured playing with a chameleon, just one of a menagerie of pets. Growing up, Princess Elizabeth’s favourite game was kick-a-tin (Picture: Getty Images)When Princess Elizabeth wanted to become a girl guide, the Buckingham Palace guide troop was formed, with pals recalling her skill at lighting a campfire using two pieces of wood (Picture: Alamy)A curtain was rigged in Sandringham’s drawing room to make a stage, and her panto with Princess Margaret became an annual event. The Queen insisted on keeping the curtains for grandchildren to perform. Princess Elizabeth starred as Aladdin in one performance, and then in wartime joined a production of Old Mother Red Riding Boots, to entertain local children in Windsor (Picture: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis/Getty Images)
Joining up aged 19, Elizabeth Windsor trained as a mechanic – boasting in her 80s that she could ‘still fix a five tonner’. After waving from Buckingham Palace on VE Day, Princess Elizabeth slipped unnoticed into the crowd, pulled her army hat firmly down over her head so she wasn’t recognised and partied – doing a conga through the front door of the Ritz (Picture: Reg Speller/Getty Images/Hulton Archive)Princess Elizabeth was invited to a private dance party in Ontario, Canada, during a five-week tour in October. During dinner beforehand, fellow partygoers used sugar lumps to demonstrate dance formations to the royal couple – who then stunned onlookers with a dazzling dancing display. Just four months later, her father, King George VI, died in his sleep at Sandringham and at the age of just 25, she ascended to the throne (Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Returning to Buckingham Palace on Coronation Day, June 2, 1953. Her robe was lined with oyster silk to combat the heat expected from TV cameras inside Westminster Abbey. She had eaten a diet of boiled eggs for six weeks in a bid to reduce her need for the toilet during the long ceremony. (Picture: The Print Collector/Getty Images)The birth of youngest son Edward at Buckingham Palace in March 1964 didn’t stop business as usual. Just three months later, the Queen was on duty at Trooping the Colour, and holding her latest arrival with one hand while she merrily waved to the crowds with another. (Picture: Fox Photos/Getty Images/Hulton Archive)The Queen’s ability to refresh her lipstick without a mirror, whatever the occasion, frequently amazed onlookers. But it marked a lifelong fascination with lipstick, sparked by a shortage of make-up during the war years, when she was a young girl. For her coronation, the Queen commissioned Elizabeth Arden to create a lipstick for her to wear and she stuck to similar pink and red shades all her life. (Picture: Tim Graham/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)The Queen racing to the balcony when her horse had won a race was a lovely sight. She showed a great ability to run in heels and skirt and hat, and her delight was clear. Here, she congratulated her horse Expansive for winning at Royal Ascot in 1979 (Picture: Tim Graham/Getty Images)The Queen first travelled on the London Underground in May 1939, along with her sister Princess Margaret and her governess. As a child, it was her favourite treat, along with trips to Woolworths, where she was allowed to buy sweets. She returned to the Underground in 1969 for the opening of the Victoria line (Picture: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis/Getty Images)During her tour of the Pacific Island of Tuvalu in 1982, the Queen was thrilled to learn that tribesmen in nearby Vanuatu had started the Prince Philip Movement – which revered the Duke of Edinburgh officially as their god. Their village was filled with images of the Prince (Picture: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images/Hulton Archive)The Queen snapping Prince Philip at the Windsor Horse Show. Her first Windsor Horse Show was created to raise money for Spitfires in 1943. The grand total of £391,197 was enough to buy 78 fighters (Picture: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Images)As a young girl, Princess Elizabeth was taken to London Zoo by her nanny and given a ride on an elephant. Years later, she met Donna the elephant at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo’s brand new Centre for Elephant Care. Officials had debated the wisdom of inviting the Queen to feed Donna, in case her pristine white gloves were marked. But on arrival, the Queen whipped off her glove and chatted to Donna happily (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)An ability to talk to all animals was demonstrated here, when the Queen was snapped patiently showing her favourite corgi the view from the window at Heathrow Airport in 1986. By now, she was the established founder of a whole new breed – the dorgi. Asked how a tiny dachshund had managed to father puppies with a larger corgi, she replied cheerfully: ‘Oh, it’s simple, we have a little brick they can stand on.’ (Picture: Today/REX/Shutterstock)When the Queen filmed her iconic skit with James Bond for the Olympics opening ceremony in 2012, a duplicate outfit was made for a stuntman to make his helicopter jump. Nobody was more surprised than the Queen’s family, who’d been told nothing of the plan. The following year, Her Majesty was amused to meet a child who asked how long it had taken her to train for the jump (Picture: Alamy)This lavish dinner at Windsor Castle for the Irish president Michael D Higgins in 2014 gives an idea of the huge scale involved. When the Queen came to the throne, she was horrified to find that two kitchens existed – one for royals and the second for staff, because ‘ordinary’ people were not deemed fit to eat the same food as the royal family. With Prince Philip’s backing, she merged the two kitchens (Picture: Dan Kitwood/PA)So did the Queen start giggling at Prince Philip when she saw him dressed as a Grenadier Guard complete with bearskin? It was to prove the most unguarded snapshot of their marriage but unbeknown to onlookers, a swarm of bees descended on the royal couple and they both began to laugh. Guests at the parade were forced to flee and a royal beekeeper was summoned to move the swarm (Picture: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)The Queen never forgot her first ever Windsor Horse Show. It marked her first ever win – in the pony and dogcart race. But the highlight, she always claimed, was the moment the winner of the dog obedience class broke free and ate the cold meat off her father King George VI’s plate. Here, she watches her horse compete in day one of the show in 2019 (Picture: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)A flashback to April 2020 and, as a nation full of loved ones divided, and with a prime minister in intensive care with Covid, the Queen gave one of the most important speeches of her life. Due to isolating in her own bubble, she did her own make-up and hair – and urged the whole country that troubled times would pass and ‘We will meet again’. Digital advertising boards in London’s Piccadilly Circus on April 9 reminded the public of her pandemic message. The Queen herself spent lockdown with a small bubble of staff at Windsor, boosting morale by hosting their own Bubble Olympics, which she watched hiding behind a bush without being noticed, handing them prizes. When her beloved husband died, she sat alone and masked for his funeral in what would become one of the iconic images of strength and loss (Picture: Bloomberg/Getty Images)The Queen’s beloved dresser, Angela Kelly, hails from the north and is a huge fan of Coronation Street. So when a visit to the set was suggested in 2021, everyone assumed the Queen was a fan too. In fact, she had to be briefed about the programme but declared herself happy to visit and arrived in tremendous spirits. Actor William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow in the soap, declared he had fallen in love. He had first met the new Queen in Jamaica as a junior officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers. ‘She was just a very comforting person to be with,’ he recalled (Picture: Scott Heppell/WPA Pool/Getty Images)One of the Queen’s favourite Christmas presents was a transparent umbrella, which she took to Balmoral. On her Christmas list, she added identical umbrellas for Sandringham and Windsor. She asked friends and family for practical but inexpensive gifts, leaving a list of suggestions with her lady in waiting because she was always worried that people would overspend. (Picture: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)A pair of sturdy shoes and the handbag that never left her side – two symbols of steadfast reassurance to the nation. So what was inside her famous handbag – apart from the marmalade sandwiches she revealed earlier this year to Paddington Bear? The answer was sweets for the grandchildren and, of course, the odd treat for the corgis (Picture: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)Godspeed Ma’am, and god bless (Picture: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
