With Anne at her side, the Queen’s on sparkling form

IT was one of her first public engagements without Prince Philip since his retirement. But if the Queen was feeling uneasy without her husband by her side, she wasn’t showing it.

Accompanied by Princess Anne, she beamed through a reception at the Army and Navy Club in Pall Mall to mark the centenary of the Women’s Royal Navy Service and the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corp.

Meeting three sprightly ladies – aged 90, 92 and 94 – who, like her, served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Second World War, the Queen, 91, smiled and remarked: ‘You’re looking well on it.’ ‘And so, may I say, are you,’ said Joan De-Val, a youthfullooking 92.

Since Philip retired from public duties in July at the age of 96, it is expected that their four children will regularly step in to support the Queen. While Anne, 67, left her mother to do what she is best at last night, the two women often exchanged little smiles and affectionate glances.

On Wednesday it was revealed that the Queen will no longer lay a wreath at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, in another concession to her age.

‘Her children will step in’