What’s your secret?’ her grandson, Prince Harry, asks her. She won’t tell him. It’s a curious fact that Queen Elizabeth II is the most photographed woman in history but she remains an enigma to her people, and even to her close family. We know her face as well as we know our own, but we can’t claim to know her.
All 5,300 breeding pairs of mute swans in the UK are officially owned by the Queen. Like them, she has perfected the art of looking unflappable on the surface, as the pictures over the following pages attest, but what it takes to achieve such steely serenity – well, that is a mystery and the key to her success.
Now, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is celebrating her 90th birthday – a milestone in any life, but even more so for the grandmother of the nation, whose record-breaking reign will give its name to an era of both extreme change and blessed stability.
At 90, Her Majesty, as seen recently in ITN’s Our Queen at Ninety, is still on preposterously good form. At a time when most people her age are watching Countdown from their armchair, the Queen is ploughing through those daily red boxes or out riding a favourite pony.
For heaven’s sake, how many pensioners enter their 10th decade on horseback? Doesn’t she know that she’s old? Apparently not. Last year, Her Majesty carried out an astounding 306 engagements in the UK and 35 abroad, easily outperforming younger members of the Firm.
Watching our small, snowy Queen, in her sturdy court shoes, go about her duties with determination and undimmed zest is to find yourself reaching for the famous When Harry Met Sally line: ‘I’ll have what she’s having.’
A long, long time ago, on her 21st birthday, Princess Elizabeth made a solemn promise that brings tears to my eyes whenever I hear it. ‘I declare before you all,’ she said, ‘that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.’
How lucky we are that that life proved to be long, not short, and that, at the grand old age of 90, the Queen goes on keeping that promise of her youth.
The photographs the Telegraph has selected to mark the occasion give a sweeping sense of time passing, but the woman at their centre has a remarkable secret: always changing, ever just the same. Happy birthday, Your Majesty. As Shakespeare put it: ‘To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still.’
Her promise to us, delivered in that youthful, crystal-clear voice, rings down the decades.
Elizabeth has been dedicated to our service, and will be until the last beat of her heart.
Supports the claim that euthanasia for some politicians perhaps isn't such a bad idea after all, doesn't it?
