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Philip, gossip and skating: these are the passions of the very young Elizabeth II

At the outbreak of the Second World War the future queen Elizabeth II had thirteen years. Removed from London for her safety, she spent the next five years locked up in Windsor Castle with her younger sister Margaret. We know that during the conflict the very young Elizabeth became the protagonist of important gestures, remained in history. For example his first radio announcement to the nation, in 1940, for the “Children’s Hour» of the BBC.

Ma as were the days of the princesses in the gilded prison of Windsor? A book entitled The castle in The Windsor Diaries: My Childhood With the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, allows us to take a peek into the daily life of the future sovereign.

The author, Alathea Fitzalan Howard, 97, grandson of Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent, was evacuated to Windsor when she was 16 and stayed there until she was 22. All that time he wrote a diary in which he noted in detail his days with Elizabeth and Margaret. For example the carefree hours spent at skate with the princesses, their afternoon teas, their infantile madnesses against the governesses who too difficult math, or the moments when she and Elizabeth, giggling, they exchanged confidences about Prince Philip, future husband of the future queen (“P was her boyfriend»Writes Alathea).

In her diaries, Howard does not hide hers fondness for Margaret, the more charismatic of the two sisters: “It is sweet and makes you laugh».

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