THROUGH THE DECADES: HOW OUR PLATINUM QUEEN HAS MADE HER MARK ON HISTORY

1950s

For the young Queen, catapulted into the role that would define her life and change the course of the country, there was no easing into the job.

It was a steep learning curve, but she could have hoped for no better mentor than Sir Winston Churchill, the first of 14 prime ministers during her reign, who tutored the fledgling monarch on the constitutional monarchy, politics and the law. The Queen reportedly wrote to Sir Winston after he retired in 1955, saying that no other would “ever for me be able to hold the place of my first prime minister, to whom both my husband and I owe so much and for whose wise guidance during the early years of my reign I shall always be so profoundly grateful”.

There is an element of showbusiness to royal life and the millions who celebrated the Coronation in 1953 saw a star in their Queen.

However, unlike the queens of the silver screen, she had a serious