HER MAJESTY TURNS 90
The real party will start in June
• The Queen turns 90 on Thursday but she is not planning a major, fireworks-filled celebration to mark the happy occasion. Just a gentle stroll outside the grounds of Windsor Castle, the lighting of a beacon, and a night at home with family are all that are on the royal plate.
The Queen will save the pomp and ceremony for her next birthday. The monarch gets two birthdays each year, one on the actual date of her birth, April 21, and one official birthday in June, when there is at least a reasonable hope of dry, sunny parade weather.
Her customary reticence hasn’t kept the British media from going slightly bonkers at the approaching milestone. One television station has already aired a celebratory Our Queen at 90 documentary to pump up its Easter ratings, and Tatler magazine put the Queen on its cover, foregoing the youthful socialites that are its typical cover fare.
The birthday events Thursday can be considered a dress rehearsal for the official celebrations planned in early June. It also opens the door to a rolling birthday season that will last a full six weeks, climaxing with hundreds of celebrations large and small.
“June is when everything is happening. That’s the great big extravaganza, the street parties and everything,” said Sophia Money-Coutts, Tatler’s features director.
“It’s just a golden moment for the whole family after a tricky few years,” Money-Coutts said. “And the Queen is the figurehead of all that, with the line of succession pretty assured. They are going through a glorious period.”
The Queen’s popularity holds for many in Canada as well, as a majority of respondents to a recent survey were supportive of the Queen as the country’s monarch.
The Angus Reid Institute — to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday — polled Canadians on their views of the monarchy and its key players. Some 64 per cent of respondents indicated they support continuing to recognize Elizabeth as Queen, but only 46 per cent would support recognizing Prince Charles as king.
The Queen — with her familiar smile, colourful outfits and eccentric if expensive hats — seems oddly impervious to time. If she is tired, it doesn’t show. She has softened her schedule, as a concession to 89 and counting, and she has cut back on gruelling plane journeys, but she shows no sign of physical or mental frailty.
Neither does her 94-yearold husband, Prince Philip, despite several serious health scares that included a medical intervention to open clogged heart arteries. His face may be craggy but his bearing is upright.
Both still seem to be going strong, although their children and grandchildren are increasingly stepping in to handle royal duties ranging from the routine to the substantial, such as attending a meeting of Commonwealth heads of state.
JUNE IS WHEN EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING. THAT’S THE GREAT BIG EXTRAVAGANZA, THE STREET PARTIES AND EVERYTHING. — SOPHIA MONEY-COUTTS, TATLER MAGAZINE