A Queen with the world at her feet

The Queen starts five months of diamond jubilee celebrations this week with the promise of pomp and splendour despite her wishes for restraint.

This will be the year Britain sees the world and the world sees Britain

Elizabeth 11 will make a deliberately low-key visit to Norfolk in eastern England today, 60 years to the day since she ascended to the throne after her father King George VI suddenly died on February 6, 1952.

The visit kicks off a series of events culminating in a flotilla of 1,000 boats sailing up the River Thames on June 3, led by the Queen in a barge decorated in royal scarlet and gold and adorned with flowers.

Palace officials say the Queen has ordered that there should be no unnecessary expenditure of public money on the celebrations.

Underlining the calls for restraint, Prince Charles’s wife Camilla stressed that the Queen likes things very plain – and launched an appeal for a recipe to mark the occasion, such as the coronation chicken created for the coronation in 1953.

But Prime Minister David Cameron noted that the jubilee would cost a fraction of the bill for the London Olympics which take place in July and August.

“This will be the year Britain sees the world and the world sees Britain,” he declared, urging Britons to make the most of the opportunity.

The palace is keen to stress that it will be business as usual today when the 85-year-old monarch visits the town of King’s Lynn and a school nearby.

The engagements are the kind she has performed a thousand times over the six decades of her reign, but that unfailing sense of duty is starting to concern her family.

As her grandson Prince Harry said in a BBC interview to mark the occasion: “These are things that at her age she shouldn’t be doing, yet she’s carrying on and doing them.”

The Queen will recall the highpoints of her reign in a speech to Parliament on March 20. Then her love of horses will take centre stage for a diamond jubilee pageant in the grounds of Windsor Castle over three nights in May.

The main diamond jubilee festivities have been scheduled over four days on June 2-5, in the hope of fine weather, with a special national holiday declared.

The Queen will hope one of her horses can finally win the Epsom Derby on June 2.

The following day, it is hoped millions will gather for the Big Lunch, a mass garden party around the country.

The Queen will sail up the Thames, whose banks will be lined by crowds, in what the organisers hope will be the centrepiece of the jubilee.

On Monday, June 4, beacons will be lit on high ground across Britain and the Commonwealth, before a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The story of her life

Queen Elizabeth II marks 60 years on the British throne today. Here are some of the key moments of her life:

April 21, 1926: Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is born in London, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

December 11, 1936: Becomes heir to throne when her father takes the crown following the abdication of her uncle King Edward VIII.

1940: A year into World War II, the 14-year-old delivers her first broadcast, via the BBC, to all the children of Britain and the Commonwealth.

1942: Carries out first public engagement on her 16th birthday with an inspection of the Grenadier Guards, of which she is appointed colonel-in-chief.

1947: First official overseas visit, to South Africa, with her family during which she publicly dedicates herself to service of the Commonwealth.

November 20, 1947: Marries third cousin Prince Philip of Greece, five years her senior.

1948: First child and heir to the throne, Charles, is born.

1950: Daughter Anne born.

February 6, 1952: Informed while in Kenya, during a tour of the Commonwealth with her husband, that her father has died and she has become Queen.

June 2, 1953: Crowned Queen at Westminster Abbey in a coronation broadcast live on radio and television.

1960: Second son Andrew born, followed by third son Edward in 1964

1980: Makes the first ever state visit to the Vatican by a British monarch, to meet the Pope, in a historic moment for the head of the Anglican Church. Two years later John Paul II, the head of the Catholic Church, visits to Britain.

1981: Heir-to-the-throne Charles marries Diana Spencer in a fairytale wedding watched by millions around the world.

December 25, 1992: Remarks on an annus horribilis (horrible year) in her Christmas speech, after 12 months in which her sons Charles and Andrew separate from their wives and daughter Anne divorces from her husband. A fire also ravages part of Windsor Castle the month before Christmas.

August 31, 1997: Princess Diana dies in a Paris car crash. The Queen’s reserved reaction is criticised in the face of an outpouring of public grief.

2002: Her sister, Margaret, dies on February 9 and her mother Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, dies on March 30, aged 101.

2005: Charles weds long-time love Camilla Parker Bowles in a private ceremony.

April 2009: Prince Philip becomes Britain’s longest-serving Queen’s consort.

April 29, 2011: The Queen’s grandson and second-in-line Prince William marries Kate Middleton in a glittery display of pageantry at Westminster Abbey.

May 2011: Makes landmark four-day state visit to Ireland, the first by a British monarch since the Republic won independence in 1922.

October 2011: Attends Commonwealth meeting in Australia where they agree to change the rules of succession so a first-born daughter can inherit the throne.

December 2011: Prince Philip undergoes emergency heart surgery, the most serious health scare yet for the 90-year-old Duke of Edinburgh.