By ELMINA FABON FALLAR
AFTER our trip to the Holy City of Rome, my second child decided to spend her birthday in London. Excitement engulfed my whole being. I would soon see Queen Elizabeth.
When Queen Elizabeth was born, on April 21, 1926, in Bruton Street, London, nobody could have foreseen that the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York would become the longest – reigning monarch.
Christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary on 29 May in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace, she took her first name from her mother and middle names from grandmother and great-grandmother, Queens Mary and Alexandra.
For the first ten years of her life she remained third in line to the throne, enjoying a carefree childhood that her royal parents endeavored to keep as normal as possible.
The Princess spent her first year at White Lodge in Richmond Park. After that, she and her parents moved to a five-storey townhouse in Picadillo, over looking Green Park.
Charged with the Princess’s earliest care was royal nanny Clara Knight, looking after the nine-month-old Elizabeth when her parents left on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand.
A letter written by Clara at the time reassured the Royal parents that their daughter was thriving.
“If Mummy looks into my wide open mouth with a little magnifying glass, she will see my two teeth. Elizabeth is quite well and happy,” she wrote in a charming note, dated March 8, 1927.
The young Princess grew up with a sense of duty, instilled early by her Nanny, who ran everything to a strict schedule. Then under the instruction of her grandmother Queen Mary, she was taught to wave and smile — and not fidget – in public.
Despite this Elizabeth’s father the duke was determined to replicate his own austere and unhappy childhood for his beloved daughters.
The Duchess had fond memories of her own childhood, in Scotland, and wanted Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret Rosa, who was born there in 1930, to have as normal an upbringing as possible. She and the Duke, who often referred to his family as “we four”, played with their young daughter, read to them, bathed them and took them for walks in public parks.
The family spent Christmas at Sandringham, Easter at Windsor and holidayed at the Balmoral Estate during the summer, where the Princesses learnt to stalk and shoot deer. Weekends were spent at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, where they loved to play in the garden with their many pets.
When Elizabeth was six year old, her parents took over Royal Lodge as their country home. In its grounds, Elizabeth and Margaret played in Y Bwthyn Bach (The Little House), a charming replica of a Welsh thatched cottage presented to Elizabeth by the people of Wales for her sixth birthday.
The Princess were educated at home by their governess Marion Crawford known as Crawfie – who described Elizabeth as a jolly, intelligent, sensible and tidy little girl with a passion for horses and dogs.
Elizabeth was a favorite of her grandfather George V who nickname her Lilibet and would spend hours playing with her, It was he who introduced her to her passion for racing and, on her fourth birthday, presented her with her first pony.
Since her earliest years, the Queen has been devoted to her people.
When, aged just 21, Princess Elizabeth made a pledge to the people of Britain and the Commonwealth that she would serve them all her life; who could tell how long and how eventful that life would turn out to be?
As Britain celebrate the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, the country’s longest – reigning monarch, I also look forward to many more years of her glorious reign. In the pages of her story, there is no one to compare to her. As a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, she shares with nearly all her subjects the joys of family life. What sets her apart is that, for the best of the century, she has worked single mindedly to keep Britain great. And still she goes to work everyday.
While fashions come and go, while governments rise and fold, Her Majesty gives the appearance of staying the same while subtly charging her style to reflect the demands of each new era. She remains a rock in an ever-changing world.
Today she is alive to the new generation and thrilled to be connected to it. As the Duchess of Cambridge recently remarked: “(Prince) George is only two and a half and he calls her ‘Gan-Gan’ – She always leaves a little gift or something in (his) room when we go to stay and that just shows her love for her family.”
That love is reciprocated. The Duke of Cambridge in particular, has impressed royal observers with the respect he shows his grandmother and his determination to mould his future kingship in her style.
And why not? Hers is a traditional – modernist formula that has worked well and to the envy of every other hereditary monarchy around the globe. Yet consider how things have changed since the beginning of her reign. When she came to the throne in 1952 very few people had a television, barely one in five adults owned a car and the internet did not exist.
As the new Elizabethan era got under way, however, the world started to spin faster and faster, with the comfortable old order that the Queen inherited swiftly dissolving. She reigned throughout the troubles in Northern, through the era of the three-day week in the early 1970, and through the Falklands War, miner’s strike poll tax riots of Margaret Thatcher’s government.
Hereditary peers were mostly removed from the House of the Lords in 1999 and social changes that could never have been contemplated in 1952, such as same-sex marriages, have become part of everyday life.
No monarch has even been confronted by so much change – at times alarming, at times exciting. No monarch has been so well-equipped to embrace those changes.
For seven of her nine decades she has had beside her the Duke of Edinburgh, the most steadfast of consorts. His modernizing, no nonsense approach to the business of royalty helped create a formula that has kept the monarchy fresh and appealing. With Prince Philip by her side the Queen has travelled the world. She has been seen by more people and has shaken the hands of more of her subjects than virtually all her predecessors combined.
Her reign is often compared to that of Queen Victoria. But though Victoria reigned over a vast empire, she saw almost none of it.
With each visit the Queen makes, she leaves behind a bit of love that helps strengthen her and her country’s reputation abroad.
There have been times, including the failure of her three children marriages, her annus horribilis of 1992 and the criticism that shook the monarchy in the aftermath of the death in 1997 of Diana, Princess of Wales.
However, her dedicated work ethic and her genuine delight at meeting her subjects long ago marked Her Majesty out as someone with a unique gift for Queenship and no criticism of her has ever stuck for long. Despite her 90 years, her job goes on – and from her point of view will continue to do so indefinitely.
Now is a time for celebration – for Her Majesty, her family and for everyone. In the simple words of their national anthem: “Long live the noble Queen.”
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