HAPPY BIRTHDAY MA’AM
Her Majesty as you’ve never seen her before
She’s three decades past the age most people retire at, but her dedication to duty is as phenomenal as ever. And as the Queen prepares to celebrate her 95th birthday this month, praise is already flowing for her unstinting service of almost 70 years.
The Queen’s milestone birthday on April 21 has prompted a flood of tributes for the way she’s performed as monarch, and has also led many to reminisce about the woman behind the crown.
One of those to speak out about what she’s really like is her childhood friend and bridesmaid, Lady Pamela Hicks.
Pamela, 91, who was also the Queen’s lady-in-waiting for a period, admits that as she watched her friend’s coronation back in 1953, she wondered how the 27-year-old would cope with the demands of the duty she’d have to undertake for the rest of her life. “I think one knew she would, because there’s such inner strength there.”
Like the Queen, Pamela is a great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her father was Lord Mountbatten, and Prince Philip, 99, is her first cousin. Her recollections of growing up with Elizabeth feature in My Years with the Queen, a documentary made as part of Her Majesty’s birthday commemorations and based on diary entries Pamela penned while she was the Queen’s lady-in-waiting.
Pamela reveals that although the Queen has always put duty first and has strict rules about maintaining the dignity of the monarchy, in private she can be much more down to earth and playful. She’s known among her friends for her pranks and fondness for mimicry, and is “quite the giggler”, says Pamela.
Pamela recalls the time she was on a Commonwealth tour with the young Queen and during a rare moment off, on an island in Australia, the pair sat down to chat. They were discussing the gruelling schedule and the fact that
Her Majesty was endlessly being hounded by royal fans.
“I sat with Lillibet under a tree,” Pamela wrote in her diary, using the Queen’s childhood nickname, “listening to her holding forth about being marooned on a desert island. But she cheered up considerably when a boatload of trippers appeared, shouting whether we had seen the Queen.
“Lillibet, in slacks, tore down the beach, pointed to the other side of the island and yelled, ‘She went thataway!’ and jumped up and down with joy as the boat disappeared around the corner.”
Pamela confirms that the rumours about the Queen being extremely thrifty are true, and that she doesn’t like to see anything going to waste. She donated some of her daughter Anne’s cast-off clothing to Pamela for her daughters,
‘She’s known for her pranks and mimicry, and is quite the giggler’