HELLO! Collectors' Edition - The Queen, Platinum Jubilee Special

The world has been transformed in the past 70 years. In that time there have been 14 UK Prime Ministers, 14 Presidents of the United States of America, man has scaled Mount Everest and flown to the moon (and investigated far beyond), and information technology has moved at warp speed. But amid all the shifts in power and huge changes to the planet and its inhabitants, the Queen has not deviated from the course she has so skilfully charted since her accession on 6 February 1952. She has dedicated her entire life to the people of the UK and Commonwealth, remaining true every day to the speech she gave on her 21st birthday, in which she declared: “My whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to…

The Queen has embraced the new, while maintaining centuries-old traditions When she pledged herself, aged just 21, to a life of service, few could have predicted just how long her commitment would endure. Princess Elizabeth went on to make history as Queen Elizabeth II, the country’s longest-reigning monarch and the first to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee. Remarkably, 75 years after her solemn vow to serve, she has renewed her pledge, while also pragmatically setting out her hopes for a future beyond her reign. The young Princess Elizabeth was not born to be Queen, but became heir presumptive aged ten, when her uncle Edward VIII abdicated to marry US divorcée Wallis Simpson. With her destiny as a future monarch determined, she nevertheless found herself propelled into the role earlier than expected…

It is a day of mixed emotions, marking the anniversaries of both her accession to the throne and the death of her beloved father, George VI, but 6 February this year held special significance for the Queen as she marked a historic 70 years as sovereign. As usual, Her Majesty spent the day at her Norfolk retreat, Sandringham, a place that holds many treasured memories of her father, as well as of her husband the Duke of Edinburgh. Poignantly, she chose to stay this time at the estate’s Wood Farm, where Prince Philip had spent his retirement. No doubt the monarch was in a reflective mood as she looked back on her remarkable reign and the two men who influenced it so greatly. Princess Elizabeth, as she was known before…

The Queen’s coronation on 2 June 1953 was one of the greatest events of the 20th century. More than 8,000 guests packed into Westminster Abbey to witness the crowning of the young monarch, while millions more thronged the route that took her and the Duke of Edinburgh to and from the abbey, or watched on TV – still a novel phenomenon at the time. Upon her father’s death in February the previous year, Elizabeth had been proclaimed Queen and Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith. But her coronation marked her formal acceptance of this role and her enthronement as monarch. A day of pomp and ceremony was planned befitting this momentous occasion. Inside the abbey extra staircases, lighting, a telephone exchange and a stage were installed. Celebrated…

For the young Queen, catapulted into the role that would define her life and change the course of the country, there was no easing into the job. It was a steep learning curve, but she could have hoped for no better mentor than Sir Winston Churchill, the first of 14 Prime Ministers during her reign, who tutored the fledgling monarch on the constitutional monarchy, politics and the law. The Queen reportedly wrote to Sir Winston after he retired in 1955, saying that no other would “ever for me be able to hold the place of my first prime minister, to whom both my husband and I owe so much and for whose wise guidance during the early years of my reign I shall always be so profoundly grateful”. Her father…

History fondly celebrates Britain in the 1960s as the heart of the Swinging Sixties, leading the way in music, fashion, film and TV. The Beatles took the US by storm; Mary Quant, with her chic Vidal Sassoon bob, became an icon of cool, and the cockney vowels of screen star Michael Caine became as famous around the world as the Queen’s English. And in sport the England football team ruled the world, seizing the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966 with a dramatic 4-2 victory over West Germany at Wembley. Meanwhile, the US might have looked with envy at the relatively peaceful politics across the Pond. For the Queen, the 1960s were also personally a golden decade, giving her her youngest sons, Princes Andrew and Edward. Now settled into the role…