The most recognisable woman on the planet was once told by a customer in a shop at Sandringham that she looked like the Queen. ‘How reassuring,’ came the reply from the headscarf-wearing head of state.
Reassurance is what the Queen has provided to millions of people and what she will be rewarded for during the Platinum Jubilee festivities. A significant chunk of the population revere someone they don’t really know. For decades, a shy woman who’s not a natural ‘people person’ has been in our midst, yet set apart. When she opened the Elizabeth Line last month, the Queen was given a travelcard. She last commuted on the London Underground as a princess in 1939.
Oversharing isn’t in the lexicon of the fast-dwindling wartime generation for which the Queen remains a figurehead. The monarchical upper lip doesn’t droop and, according to her cousin, she keeps things buried. When she allowed the BBC to broadcast previously private home movies, the footage stopped in 1953.
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