A GORGEOUS GIFT FROM HER FATHER

The Queen was particularly close to her father. She modelled her style of monarchy on his and often, when faced with a problem in the early days of her reign, she would ask her private secretary, ‘What would the king have done?’ George VI, who once said that Elizabeth was his pride and Margaret his joy, liked bestowing gifts on his eldest daughter. For a wedding present in 1947 he gave her a sapphire necklace and earrings set. The following year when Prince Charles was born he gave her this basket of flowers brooch (above), made up of ruby, diamond and sapphire blooms. The doting new mother wore it a month later for her first official photograph with her baby son (right).