The Queen is indeed like ‘granny’, who veiled her natural exuberance and who as fun-loving Princess May would sing rollicking songs to her young children. Having promised at the outset of her reign to do her best to do her duty, the Queen has expressed that diligence in correct and conventional clothing.
We shall never know how Princess Elizabeth’s taste might have developed if the circumstances had been different and she had been allowed 10 or 20 years as wife, mother and heir to the throne before inheriting the crown. But maybe we can glimpse what might have been in the vision of the young princess in a check shirt and dirndl skirt swinging round the dance floor with her husband before the doors of duty closed on her free spirit ■
See also: The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: The Royal Horses
