Early years
It was not the easiest of entrances into the world. When Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor was born on Sunday November 14, 1948, his mother, then Princess Elizabeth, had been in labour for 30 long hours.
While her husband Prince Philip slept, ate and played squash with his private secretary, the 22-year-old princess was in the Buhl Room at Buckingham Palace being tended to by two royal obstetricians and a midwife. It had been decided that Her Royal Highness would undergo what was then known as the twilight sleep technique, which involved giving labouring women injections of morphine and scopolamine to put them in a drowsy state. Unfortunately, it led to prolonged labours and after 30 hours, Elizabeth’s doctors decided a Caesarean was the best course of action. The Buhl Room was converted into a mini operating theatre and the
