Where is Lilibet – the Diamond Jubilee

Buckingham Palace - centre stage for the Diamond Jubilee 2012 (c) Visit Britain (p) GoUK.com

The Queen, aka Lilibet, is at one of the most public and one of the most private figures in the world.

The majority of Londoners have never seen her close up, though they share a city with her.

Even fewer have met her.

And yet Lilibet is accessible, quite aside from all the official ceremonies and state visits and the many celebrations that will be taking place for this year’s Diamond Jubilee.

History

There are traces of her early life everywhere: there’s a plaque on the wall of what used to be 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair, where Lilibet was born.

Just opposite is the atelier of Norman Hartnell: later to be her couturier and the man who made the 1953 Coronation Dress.

Not far away is 145 Piccadilly, where Lilibet spent her early childhood.

A bus ride west takes you to the former Hyde Park Hotel – now the Mandarin Oriental – where Lilibet and her sister Margaret had dancing lessons and where their father once rolled up the carpet so he could dance with his wife (the late Queen Mother) on their wedding anniversary.

Stroll out of the hotel into Hyde Park at around 10.40am daily, or 9.40am on a Sunday, and Her Majesty’s Life Guard should trot past on their way to Whitehall, mounted on horses called the Cavalry Blacks.

Horses

One of the best – and most relaxing – places to see Lilibet is at one of the big horse shows: Badminton, Gatcombe Park or Royal Windsor.

The Epsom Derby, held each June, is a race meeting that Lilibet attends in a personal capacity.

Anyone seated on The Hill – the inside of the race course on Epsom Downs, which is free – with a pair of binoculars can see her, and passengers on the open-topped double-deckers parked opposite the Queen’s Stand and the Royal Box get a brilliant view.

A more formal occasion is Royal Ascot, held later in June, where the royal party travels to the racecourse via the Golden Gates at 2pm on all five days of the meeting.

For the rest of the year, the Ascot landaus used by the royal party are on display at the Royal Mews near Buckingham Palace, which also houses the horses that draw them, known as Windsor Greys.

Homes

Windsor Castle is where Lilibet lived during the WWII, taking part in Christmas pantomimes with other children in the castle and making her famous BBC Children’s Hour wartime broadcast.

Windsor Castle is open year round, with the odd glimpse of a car flying the royal standard driving into the Upper Ward where the royal apartments are.

The State Apartments at Buckingham Palace open to the public every August and September.

This is where the 1st Buckingham Palace Guide Company was formed in 1937 so the princesses would have other children to play with, and from where Lilibet and Margaret allegedly slipped out on VE Day to join the crowds celebrating the end of the War.

Lilibet’s other homes are often open to the public.

Sandringham House in Norfolk, for example, is where Lilibet always spends Christmas: a sprig of Holy Thorn sent up from the vicarage at Glastonbury on the table.

Balmoral Castle, a summer retreat in Scotland, is open for house visits and Land Rover Safaris on the estate earlier in the year, and Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh is open year round.

The Queen has a passion for Scotland – as did her ancestor Queen Victoria – its landscape, its dancing and its games.

You can catch all three at the annual Braemar Gathering on the first weekend in September, an event that Lilibet often attends as its patron.

Romance

Lilibet met her naval cousin prince Philip of Greece and Denmark on several occasions, but reportedly fell in love with him when he was detailed to show her around the Naval College at Dartmouth, in Devon, for a day.

They married eight years later, when Lilibet was 21.

There are guided tours of the Naval College (www.discoverdartmouth.com) generally on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

You can also visit the house where they spent the early part of their honeymoon, Broadlands in Hampshire, home to Louis Mountbatten.

It reopens in summer 2012 after refurbishment.

Finally, if you really want to see the Queen, keep your eyes peeled if you are around St James’s Palace and the Mall.

Sometimes you can see the figure of a woman through the tinted glass of a passing limousine.

Sometimes the figure waves.

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