To have sustained a role as constitutional monarch of such a diverse and wide-reaching country as ours is one of the great achievements of Queen Elizabeth’s long reign. It will stand in the history books as outstanding in this or any other era.
Her first decade on the throne, the 1950s, was a time of turbulent upheaval – socially, politically, culturally. For Elizabeth II it coincided with her 30s, when many of her subjects were relishing new freedoms and the exhilaration of new ideas and opportunities.
