Queen embarks on personal day of reflection as tomorrow marks 65 years since sudden passing of dad King George VI and her accession to the throne
Her Majesty will not be entertaining on Accession Day and will not be seen in public, but there will be gun salutes across the country
TOMORROW, a maid bearing a tray of Twinings English breakfast tea and a plate of oatcakes will wake the Queen at 7.30am.
Her Majesty sticks to the routine every day — even on the one marking 65 years since she took the throne.
On February 6, 1952, aged 25, Elizabeth’s happy life as a young wife and mother of two small children changed instantly when she was told that her father, King George VI, had died at just 56.
She later said: “My father died much too young.
"So it was all a very sudden kind of taking on and making the best job you can, and accepting the fact that it’s your fate.”
The memories of that day mean that tomorrow, known as Accession Day, is still a time of sober reflection for the Queen, now 90.
She was devoted to her father, and wherever she is in the world, after breakfast, she always begins the day with private prayers for him.
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, told The Sun on Sunday: “The Queen spends the day in what is described as ‘quiet contemplation’.
“It is almost as if she had stopped the clocks at the time of her father’s death.
"She has always done everything she can to keep alive his memory and his way of doing things.”
This year will be no different at the Sandringham royal estate in Norfolk, where her father was born and died.
My father died too young ... it was all very sudden
The Queen
She will not be entertaining and will not be seen in public, but there will be gun salutes across the country.
Ingrid said: “The Prince of Wales and the rest of the family have never involved themselves in this anniversary.
"It is very much their mother or grandmother’s day to lead as she sees fit.
“There is no simple grave at which to leave flowers, George VI is buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor.
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"But they all respect the fact that the Queen likes to have this day to herself.”
Royal historian Sarah Bradford told how the Queen heard of her father’s death while on safari in Africa with Philip, who had been told by his equerry.
Sarah said: “It was 2.45pm when the Duke told his wife her father had died — and consequently she had become Queen.”
In an instant the couple’s carefree years were over.
They returned to London the next day.
The Queen’s cousin, Margaret Rhodes, later recalled: “I’ll never forget the pictures of her arrival home.
“That slight, black-clad figure looking so frail and so lonely, with the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet waiting by the steps to the aeroplane.”
And Sarah added: “She was only 25, with all the burdens and responsibilities of being a young sovereign in post-war Britain in the early Fifties, which was very much a man’s world.
“It has been a question of maturing into something that one has got used to doing and accepting the fact that it is your fate.”