Fifty Years the Queen. Arthur Bousfield

a result the Queen has a special relationship with her armed and civil forces.

      In, 1951 Princess EliM toured lhe ship.s quarters of the HMCS ONTARIO, en route from Sydney, Nova Scotia to St John's, Newfoundland.

      On Dominion Day in 1959 the Queen unveiled the memorial to Commonwealth airmen killed while serving in Canada during World War II.

      One of the Queen's Household regiments is the Canadian Greiuulier Guards of Montreal. In 1992 she presented them with new colours at Rideau Hall.

      The Queen is also Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal 22e Regiment du Canada (Valcartier and Quebec City), the 48^th Highlanders of Canada (Toronto) and the Calgary Highlanders.

      Air Command's 437 Transport Squadron, based in Trenton, Ontario is responsible for flying Her Majesty and members of the Royal Family to Canada for royal tours.

      When the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry provided the guard at Buckingham Palace in 1999 the Queen inspected the regimental band.

      In 1977 Her Majesty authorised a new Queen's Colour for Maritime Command, featuring her cypher.

      The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have provided the Sovereign's Escort for Her Majesty whenever she is in the capital of Canada, as in 1990, and often escorts the Queen in other cities in Canada and Britain.

      While they undoubtedly saw each other at family and royal events in their childhood, Princess Elizabeth first took notice of Prince Philip in the summer of 1939 at Dartmouth, when she accompanied her father on a visit to his old naval school, and where Prince Philip was a midshipman. He had been assigned to escort the two princesses. At the time Princess Elizabeth was thirteen and Prince Philip was eighteen.

      Despite the absences and difficulties of wartime, with Prince Philip frequently overseas in combat, the infatuation of the young teenager in 1939 grew into the love of a young woman by 1945. With the war ended, Prince Philip proposed in 1946 and Princess Elizabeth accepted. The King was not ready to give his approval however. While he approved of Prince Philip, he thought the Princess was too young and he had a father's natural reluctance to see his daughter leave his immediate family. There were also political concerns. The Greek monarchy had just been precariously restored, and was facing a communist insurrection. Would the marriage have political implications for the British government? If Prince Philip gave up his Greek title to marry the Princess it might be seen as anticipating the fall of the Greek monarchy. If he did not give it up it might suggest the marriage was arranged to bolster the Greek monarchy. And there was the upcoming royal tour of Southern Africa by the Royal Family which the King wished the Princess to undertake. Marriage would have to wait until after the tour.

      The 1947 royal trip to Southern Africa would prove to be a seminal event in the future Queen's life in several ways.

      First, of course, on a personal level, the love which Princess Elizabeth shared with Prince Philip easily withstood the separation, and Her Royal Highness returned to London intent on pressing her father to consent to a date for their marriage.

      Secondly, it gave the mature Princess the opportunity of undertaking at least one tour with her parents, from whom she could learn the “ropes” of a royal task which was to become a frequent and essential part of the new monarchy.

      Princess Elizabeth's 21^st birthday broadcast from South Africa, when she dedicated her life to service, is often recalled by Her Majesty.

      The King and his two daughters walk in Natal National Park. The 1947 African tour introduced Princess Elizabeth to both the potential and the troubles of the Commonwealth.

      Thirdly it was on this tour that Princess Elizabeth reached the age of majority and in her twenty-first birthday broadcast to the Commonwealth she defined the life to which she was committing herself and which she has lived up to.

      “I declare before you all”, she stated “that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial Commonwealth to which we all belong. But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do; I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God bless all of you who are willing to share it.”

      The importance of the speech to the Queen herself has been constantly demonstrated by the number of times she has referred to it at subsequent key moments in her life.

      Finally, the African tour was important in another dimension. Africa was to play, and continues to play, a central role in the evolution of the Commonwealth, of which Her Majesty is Head. In 1947 she came face to face with the racial and national issues that would inform and bedevil that evolution. As decolonisation came to Africa, starting in the fifties and ending in the eighties, the Commonwealth leadership changed from a “white club” to the most diverse in the world. (The peoples of the Commonwealth had always been that diverse of course.) Much of the Queen's reign has been devoted to dealing with the challenges and opportunities provided by this continent. As Head of the Commonwealth, Elizabeth II has considered this a vocation to be dealt with mindful of, but independent of, the advice of any one of her governments.