IT is hard to believe the Queen is celebrating 70 years on the throne.
As she stood on the Buckingham Palace balcony yesterday, the crowds roared their approval to the tiny, beautifully dressed figure.
She comes from an age when people just got on with life, uncomplaining and dutiful.
The Queen has added to this a dedication to duty that is unsurpassed by any other British monarch ever.
Since her birth, the world has changed beyond all recognition, but she has not.
Grace and finesse
The commitment and efficiency with which she still carries out her role despite her problems with mobility is unmatched. The Queen remains controlled, unemotional, punctilious and dignified.
Over the years the Queen has become aware that what is expected of her is not a performance, but a welcome.
An unpretentious feeling of warmth and sentiment is essential for her message to get across. She does not have to perform her role, merely live it.
Having reached the milestone of being the world’s longest-reigning incumbent monarch and the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, the Queen has seen enough of politics and life to know how important it is to reach out to ordinary men and women.
She has met nearly all the great leaders of the age and handled them all with grace and finesse. She has shown herself to be a woman of will determined to carry out her duties in her own way and according to her own beliefs.
She has seen the power of the monarchy eroded but has maintained her personal authority.
When in 1961 the Government, concerned for her safety, tried to prevent her visiting Ghana, she exerted her prerogative so forcefully that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan backed down.
She was just as quick to put Prime Minister Tony Blair in his place when, on a visit to Balmoral in 1999, he said with only three years to go it was time to start preparing for the Golden Jubilee. The Queen sternly reminded him: “My Golden Jubilee, Mr Blair.”
She is also brave. When at Trooping the Colour in 1981 someone had fired blank shots at her, she calmly continued with the ceremony.
The Queen lives in unrivalled splendour but would have much preferred the homely comfort of a small household surrounded by dogs and horses.
She never passes up the chance to visit her stud at Wood Farm when she stays at Sandringham and in Scotland last week she stayed at Craigowan Lodge not Balmoral Castle. She does not enjoy society but prefers the company of the small group of friends who are still around in her 97th year. She is close to a limited number of staff who have served her loyally.
Dedicated to service
Her tastes are simple and those that know her well say she is two different people; Lilibet, her pet name, and Her Majesty the Queen.
Lilibet would much rather wear a headscarf than a tiara and sit on a rug for a country picnic with her family than attend a sumptuous, glittering state banquet.
But whatever anyone claims she might or might not be, Her Majesty is first and foremost a diplomat. She has been a fixed point in the history of the monarchy and she has kept it going.
The continuity she has upheld over the years has proved to be the Royal Family’s salvation.
Whatever her family has done to occasionally bring the institution of the monarchy into disrespect, she solves it.
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Her life has been dedicated to the service of a nation and she speaks of “continuity”, “tolerance” and how “privileged” she is to have witnessed so much of history.
Above all, the Queen is humble. She is the greatest monarch ever and deserves the greatest celebration. She will get it this weekend.
