This weekend the Queen will become the first-ever British monarch to reach their Platinum Jubilee. The remarkable milestone will be marked on Sunday, February 6 – 70 years to the day she became the Queen.
Royal fans have been looking forward to the event, with larger celebrations planned for June this year.
Princess Elizabeth ascended the throne aged only 25 on February 6, 1952, after the death of her father King George VI.
She inherited from him dominion over a Britain emerging from the ravages of World War 2 – rationing was still in force, Winston Churchill was prime minister, and the British Empire was beginning its continual path into decline.
Since then she has been a constant of British life and is admired around the world.
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Despite recent health scares that forced her to pull out of key royal engagements, newly released images of the monarch show her looking delighted as she views a display of memorabilia from her Golden and Platinum Jubilees in the Oak Room at Windsor Castle.
Body language expert Judi James said the Queen looks like she is enjoying a moment of “genuine happiness”.
She said: “Anyone with an older relative will recognise a moment like this when they become engrossed in and truly delighted by a selection of memories as the Queen clearly is here.
“Her smile suggests surprise and genuine happiness at what she’s being shown and the way her eyes appear to ignore the cameras for the very happy moment or reflection reveals how lost in the moment she really is as she studies each page with authentic fascination.”
However, as pleased as her majesty may look while pouring over some of the biggest milestones in her reign, Sunday will actually be a poignant day for the monarch.
Despite it being 70 years since she became Queen, February 6 also marks the death of her much-loved father.
At age 56, King George VI had died of coronary thrombosis — making his eldest daughter and heir the new monarch.
At the time of her father’s death, she was on a visit to Kenya with her late husband Prince Philip, thousands of miles away from Buckingham Palace.
During the night, while they stayed at the Treetops Hotel in the wilderness of the Aberdare Range, her father passed away in his sleep, after suffering from lung cancer for some time.
Jim Corbett, the naturalist and hunter who accompanied the royal couple to Treetops, is credited with writing in the visitor book: “For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess and, after having what she described as her most thrilling experience, she climbed down from the tree next day a queen.”
The Duke of Edinburgh broke the news to his wife, and they quickly travelled home.
The monarch will spend her Platinum Jubilee at Sandringham.
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