The Queen: History in an Hour. Sinead Fitzgibbon

Stamp Commemorating the Coronation of George VI

      It seems, for Elizabeth at least, these lessons paid off. So impressed was she by the magnitude of the occasion, she took it upon herself to record the day’s events for posterity. In the document – which was dedicated to her parents with the words ‘To Mummy and Papa, In Memory of Their Coronation, From Lilibet. By Herself.’ – she displays a keen eye for detail and a remarkable perceptiveness for a girl of her age. She wrote: ‘At 5 o’clock in the morning, I was woken up by the band of the Royal Marines striking up just outside my window. I leapt out of bed and so did Bobo. We put on dressing-gowns and shoes . . . and we crouched in the window looking on to a cold and misty morning.’

      After a hurried breakfast, both Elizabeth and Margaret donned identical dresses of ‘white silk with old cream lace’ and ‘robes of purple velvet with gold on the edge’. Following a ‘jolty’ ride to Westminster Abbey in a horse-drawn carriage, the sisters took their place alongside their grandmother in the Royal Box. ‘I thought it all very, very wonderful . . . the arches and beams at the top were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned, at least I thought so.’

       Badge of the House of Windsor during George VI’s Reign

      However, as the two-and-a-half hour ceremony dragged on, Elizabeth’s attention began to wane: ‘At the end the service got rather boring, as it was all prayers. Grannie and I were looking to see how many more pages to the end, and we turned one more and then I pointed to the word at the bottom of the page and it said “Finis”. We both smiled at each other and turned back to the service.’

      Although she was most likely unaware of it at the time, her father’s coronation was to prove to be an excellent training ground for the young Princess – in just fifteen short years, she would find herself following reverently in his footsteps, as she made her way into the Abbey to be crowned Queen Elizabeth II.