NAPPIES... AND GLORIOUS
THEY were born 2,000 miles apart, but were destined to share a life of duty.
And as they celebrate their platinum anniversary tomorrow the Queen and Prince Philip will look back on 70 happy and glorious years.
The future monarch met Philip, her third cousin, when she was a girl of 13 and he was an 18-year-old naval cadet.
The blond Greek prince treated Princess Elizabeth and her sister Margaret to ginger biscuits and lemonade after a game of croquet, showing off by jumping a tennis net.
His macho behaviour the following day – trying to keep up with the royal yacht in his
rowing boat – impressed the young princess, who shyly confided in her maid Margaret ‘Bobo’ Mcdonald that she had met her Prince Charming.
The outbreak of the Second World War kept the young royals apart, although they wrote to each other and swapped photographs. Princess Elizabeth signed hers Lilibet, the nickname only family members used, which Prince Philip still calls her to this day, along with ‘sausage’ and sometimes ‘cabbage’.
Tomorrow they mark their anniversary at Windsor Castle, surrounded by family.
All that time, Philip has been her constant companion. When they celebrated their golden wedding she said: “He has been my strength and my stay all these years.”
As the Queen’s cousin Margaret Rhodes put it: “Princess Elizabeth was enamoured from an early age. She never looked at anyone else. She was smitten from the start.”
lewis.panther@trinitymirror.com