Elizabeth, who burst into tears on the plane the day she became queen

February 6, 1952, while a carefree Elizabeth was on an official trip to Kenya with the beloved and beautiful Philiphis father king George VI he died prematurely leaving her the throne. Since that time, the princess became Queen and from that moment her life would have changed completely, everything that concerned her personally would have taken second place compared to Crown. Elizabeth was young and not quite prepared yet, but she had the fiber to face whatever she expected.

Like this, put on his most stoic smileleft the Treetops resort where she was staying with her husband, and walked the road to the small airport of Nanyuki, where the plane that would take her back to London awaited her, greeting the crowd cheering along the edges.

But Elizabeth was also one daughter which, while she was away, she had lost a father to whom she was very attached and, however faithful to the family motto Never Complain, Never Explain (never complain, never explain), too at some point it gave way. It was in airplane: a few minutes after take-off, he got up in silence, went to the bathroom and there he cried. She cried all the tears that until then she had been forced to hold back.

It was al Guardian Nicholas Best, biographer of Eric Sherbrooke Walker, founder of the resort where the royal couple had stayed in Kenya. “She stayed in the bathroom on the plane for a while,” said Best, “When she got out, it was reassembledbut from his own red eyes it was clear to all the passengers that he had cried, and that he had done so for a long time ».

Even his lady-in-waiting, Lady Pamela HicksPhilip’s cousin, recalled the composure of Elizabeth that day: «It was one of the last people to the world to know of his father’s death. When Filippo announced it to him, his first thought was to apologize to everyone for having to shorten our stay in Kenya. It was one of the last times he was able to show his natural modesty, then he didn’t have a great chance. “

Notifying Elizabeth in 1952 was not easy: the telegram sent from London was badly decoded in Nairobi and the resort where she and Philip were staying was located in a isolated place, difficult to reach. «When the information finally arrived, Philip, to communicate the news to his wife, went up to their room which it was built on a treeLady Hicks said. “In the evening Elizabeth had gone up as a princess, but when she came down that ladder she was queen. And she did it perfectly as a queen ». A queen who, however, could not mourn her father.