The Queen Devoted to your service

As Britain's longest-reigning monarch through good times and bad, Queen Elizabeth II has proved a role model for generations past, present and future.

- JULIET RIEDEN

Princess Elizabeth was young, unworldly and head over heels in love when she made a speech that would become the framework of her life. It was a jubilant time for the Heir Apparent, who was aching to become engaged to Philip Mountbatten, the handsome naval officer she had known since she was 12 years old. Her parents were well aware of their eldest daughter's plans, as she had told them the year before, but they had asked the lovebirds to take things slowly and postpone any engagement announcement.

Ita Buttrose

"I first saw the Queen in person with my school in 1954. We were all at the Sydney Showground waving flags, and Her Majesty and Prince Philip drove around in a jeep.

I felt she liked Australians. When I joined The Weekly years later, the folklore was that in 1954 Sir Frank Packer took two copies of the magazine hot off the press with the Queen on the cover with him to a function at Government House. He produced them from behind his back, saying, 'Here you are, Ma'am.' I believe she was quite chuffed. I mean, where do you find characters like that? I think she liked that we weren't bound by protocol."

It was 1947, the country had just come through a brutal war, and the King and Queen wanted Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret to join them on an important tour of South Africa to shore up the Commonwealth. They were also well aware that this was the most important decision their Lilibet could make; choosing not just a romantic partner, but the man who would be called on to put his own career dreams aside and support their daughter when the time came for her to step up to the biggest job imaginable, that of monarch.

But if they ever had any doubts that Elizabeth was unaware of the demands of her destiny, that landmark speech broadcast around the world from Cape Town on her 21st birthday would have reassured them in spades.