Duke’s mischievous look of utter devotion ...and a picture of love
And in glorious colour, how 70 years of marriage began
WITH 70 years of married life there will be no shortage of happy memories to reflect on, from jubilees and jamborees to grand State occasions and intimate family gatherings.
As their great love story reaches a new milestone today it is tempting to wonder if this simple but delightfully unstuffy portrait of the Queen and Prince Philip catches them as they see each other.
No end of photographs of monarch and consort have been issued over the decades, but have we ever seen one quite so revealing as this? Philip all mischief and affection with a quizzical arch to the eyebrow. And the Queen? She responds with laughter and a smile of utter devotion.
Who knows what passed between the couple as the photographer artfully arranged them in front of a platinum textured background in recognition of their special anniversary? But it is safe to say that the atmosphere was all down to the special chemistry between husband and wife that is undimmed as they enter their eighth decade of marriage.
According to friends, they are as happy in each’s company today as they have been at any time in the past 70 years.
Indeed there is no better example of this marital consistency than a glimpse at the photos that marked their engagement in July 1947, now skilfully coloured by the Mail for the first time. There is certainly something striking about the way the handsome Lt Philip Mountbatten leans into the young Princess Elizabeth and the way she gazes back at him. Incredibly, they had already known each other some eight years by then.
Their first meeting at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon, was before the outbreak of World War II.
He was 18, she a girl of 13. Remarkably, the 80th anniversary of that first encounter is less than two years away and who’s to say that won’t be another anniversary to celebrate? Theirs has always been a unique partnership. In earlier days it was ‘my husband and I’, in more recent times the Queen talks of Philip as her ‘strength and stay’.
For his part Philip sticks to the terms of endearment that date from their courting days.
She is Lilibet, her childhood nickname, or ‘sausage’.
In recent months she has had to adjust to the absence of her husband from official duties. Make no mistake it has been a big loss but the Queen is certain Philip has earned his retirement. Although not together as much as they were, they still see each other as much as they wish.
Meanwhile, photographs remind us of the great debt we owe Philip for his unstinting support of his wife. Appropriately the Queen brought out a tribute to him for their official photograph, the magnificent scarab brooch in yellow gold, rubies and diamonds that he had made by Andrew Grima, society jeweller to the Swinging Sixties, and which he gave his wife in 1966.
It is the only flash of imperial grandeur to an image that encapsulates the monarchy. The Queen, 91, is not robed but rather comfortably relaxed in a cream day dress. Intriguingly, the outfit made by her dressmaker Angela Kelly, was what she also wore at the service marking the couple’s diamond wedding anniversary at Westminster Abbey a decade ago.
Philip, 96, is not beribboned in uniform as he was at the Cenotaph eight days ago, but even in tweeds and flannels there’s no disguising his military bearing.
His necktie, however, is tied with a Windsor knot. Seventy years ago today, after the drab wartime years, London was en fete for the wedding between King George VI’s daughter and the dashing young Naval officer who had been mentioned in despatches.
It is said that after so many anniversaries and jubilees in recent years, the Queen was keen to mark today’s celebration privately and quietly and there will be no peal of bells or the firing of cannon to salute the event.
However, I can reveal, the occasion is being marked with a dinner for 150 guests tonight in the magnifi-
cent Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle, where she marked her 90th birthday, so not that quietly.
apart from the royal Family, the guests include the Duke of edinburgh’s german cousins and several european royals, including the exiled King Constantine of greece. all the Queen’s ladies-inwaiting have been invited, together with their husbands as well as long- standing friends who are regular house guests of the Queen and philip.
there will be a reception at 7.30pm and guests will sit down to a dinner prepared by the Buckingham palace kitchen at 8.30pm.
at 9.30pm there will be afterdinner entertainment. Details are being kept secret to ensure there is a surprise for the royal couple but it is believed to include live music. Many are wondering if the repertoire will include the Fred astaire song the Way You Look tonight, one of philip’s favourites, and the song he chose to mark the Queen’s 80th birthday.
royal party planner Lady elizabeth anson has been called in to co-ordinate events. guests are being seated at tables of ten or 12 and the evening is expected to be over by 10.30pm. ‘neither the Duke nor the Queen like late nights any more,’ says a friend. ‘It’s the one concession to their age. they still like parties, however.’
the partnership between Queen and consort has brought much joy to the nation, too, and its longevity symbolises the constancy of the monarchy itself.
For the relationship between the Queen and philip and their sense of duty is matched only the affection of their people that grows fonder and deeper as the years go by.