60 years and still going strong

Enlarge Image

Queen Elizabeth enjoys the Epsom Derby horse race at Epsom, England, on Saturday. (SANG TAN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Related Items

1. Articles

   • River Thames becomes royal highway for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee with 1,000 boats

LONDON -- Her face is everywhere: on stamps, coins, mugs and book covers. Her likeness has just been reproduced for the 23rd time at Madame Tussauds, London's famous wax museum. More visitors come to gawp at her house than probably any other residence in the world.

Yet after reigning over Britain for longer than most of her subjects have been alive, Queen Elizabeth II is the country's "most familiar enigma," in the words of one TV presenter.

Yes, the white-haired 86-year-old keeps up a gruelling schedule of public appearances that would test someone half her age, especially during this season of celebration of her Diamond Jubilee, marking 60 years on the throne. This weekend, the queen kicked off a four-day extravaganza.

But a certain regal aloofness, a touch of otherworldliness that lends some credence to the title "Your Majesty," is a crucial component of her long success as monarch, some say.

"You do need a little bit of mystique," said Sue Daws, 52, who lives in northern Wales.

Note to heirs: You might want to work on that.

Elizabeth is the last member of the House of Windsor for whom royalty and celebrity don't overlap, or at least not by much, a distinction many observers credit with helping to preserve the monarchy's appeal.

Her discretion and dignity are in marked contrast to the behaviour of her four children. Unlike them, she doesn't submit to tell-all interviews about unhappy marriages, hasn't had details of her sex life laid bare in the tabloids, didn't take part (not even for charity) in an embarrassing game show called The Grand Knockout in 1987 (as did Princess Anne and Princes Andrew and Edward, in a moment that for many Britons represented "the breaking of royalty's magic spell," as one writer later put it).

Just last month, viewers of the BBC in Scotland switched on the TV to find their future king, Prince Charles, giving the daily weather report in his immaculately clipped tones, a surprise appearance that's become a minor hit on YouTube. ("Potential for a few flurries over Balmoral (Castle)," he said of his family's Scottish quarters, then stopped and asked, "Who the hell wrote this script?")

Although it was a good-natured and generally well-received cameo, a spot of hammy humour from an often stuffy heir apparent, no one can possibly imagine the woman he calls "Mama" doing the same thing.

"The queen has always avoided what she calls stunts," said Robert Lacey, author of the just-published The Queen: A Life in Brief. "The monarchy has got to distinguish itself from other aspects of British public life."

Part of Elizabeth's aura of solemn reserve is natural to her temperament and her generation, with its harrowing experience of world war and its innate aversion to making a spectacle. Lacey notes that she grew up in the era depicted in the movie The King's Speech -- the king in question was her father -- when mass media were still novelties and engaging them wasn't automatically part of the British sovereign's job description.

But some of the queen's detached grandeur is carefully cultivated and maintained.

There are countless biographies, but no autobiography. Her public comments are polite, unexceptionable and totally unrevealing. Everyone knows about her love of dogs and horses, but only those closest to her have any real inkling of the thoughts beneath the diamond tiaras and behind the guarded smile.

Despite cool, damp weather in much of the country, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to participate in celebrations, including street parties, today's flotilla down the Thames and a Monday pop concert in front of Buckingham Palace featuring Elton John and Paul McCartney.

-- Los Angeles Times, with files from The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 3, 2012 A7