Episode 3 The Diamond Queen

A Queen has reached 60 years on the throne

for the first time in modern history.

Queen Elizabeth II is part of the background of every British life,

but what matters to her?

No matter where she is, who she's with or when,

she always has this ability

to bring what I could describe as energy and fun to the occasion.

In this final episode of The Diamond Queen,

we look at the defining moments of her reign.

And so sanctify thy servant Elizabeth...

We examine how she's coped

with decades of changing and sometimes tense relations

between the monarchy and the media.

What I say to you now, as your Queen

and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.

It was a very difficult...thing for her to balance.

From silver and gold to diamond,

we look at those unusual celebrations, Royal Jubilees.

In the run-up to every Jubilee, there's institutionalised pessimism,

as if it could never be the same as last time, but so far it always is.

And for the first time ever, all of the Queen's adult grandchildren

have their say about the Diamond Queen.

The nation's grandmother.

We all have massive respect for her and love her to bits.

She's led the way, and long may that continue.

RADIO: 'This is London.

'It is with the greatest sorrow that we make the following announcement.

'It was announced from Sandringham at 10:45 today

'that the King, who retired to rest last night in his usual health,

'passed peacefully away in his sleep earlier this morning.'

BIRDSONG

60 years ago, February 6th 1952,

the Queen's father, King George VI,

died here at Sandringham.

The previous day, he'd been out shooting rabbits,

a favourite occupation,

and he went to bed with his usual cup of cocoa.

He wasn't a well man, he'd survived some very serious operations,

but he was all of 56 years old,

and his death came as a terrible shock.

When this defining moment,

the start of the Queen's reign, happened,

she knew nothing.

She was thousands of miles away in Kenya

on the first leg of a Commonwealth tour.

Prince Philip was told first.

"When he heard," said an aide,

"he looked as if the whole world had dropped on him."

He broke the news to his wife.

Delayed by thunderstorms, it took her 24 hours

to get back to British soil.

She was seen sitting alone, tearful and white-faced,

staring out of the aircraft window.

But by the time she landed, she was poised, already ready.

Met by Winston Churchill and Britain's political grandees,

this 25-year-old mother of two young children

began a life sentence,

even if it was a gilded cage and a fate she accepted.

I think one of the most interesting things is,

as I'm sort of approaching the age that she was when she became Queen,

that you think about, you know, she was 25 when she became Queen.

-Yes.

-And you think about how young that is for somebody

to take on this incredible responsibility

and give up her life in service.

She took the helm from the man

who had saved the monarchy after the abdication crisis,

and on the day of King George VI's funeral,

the Queen, with her grandmother and mother, looked shell-shocked.

A vast weight of expectation now sat on her shoulders.

It took 16 months to plan,

but on Tuesday June 2nd, 1953,

the Queen was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

'Through the grey dawn came people from all over the world,

'making for the route of the Royal procession.'

The day had started cold and wet,

with some 30,000 people estimated to have slept out overnight

on the pavements and stones of the processional route

and another 20,000 trying and failing to find a good spot.

It was less than ten years since the end of World War II's Blitz.

A tough people,

but people, too, who were reaching forward for better times.

The Coronation was a genuine national carnival,

but also a hoped-for moment of patriotic rebirth.

We had Coronation mugs at school.

And I bought a Dinky Toy version of the golden coach.

And it seemed to me, as a young boy,

that this was zenith, really.

I was only six, and as a young six-year-old,

going on the trolleybus from Finchley Central to Barnet,

to Auntie Gwen's to watch it on this tiny little screen, wonderful!

People poured into London, a shabby, post-war capital

now decorated at last.

Around Britain, there was dancing and parties

and a bit of silliness.

Plenty to eat - a new dish, coronation chicken,

was specially invented and has become a kind of British classic.

The Coronation

was the most important moment in the Queen's life,

certainly the most important official moment.

As a 27-year-old, she'd thought long and hard about what was ahead,

and she practised in the Buckingham Palace ballroom,

using sheets pinned together as her 21-foot-long train.

She also walked around wearing the crown on her head

so that her neck could get used to its very considerable weight.

As the Queen left for Westminster in the Gold State Coach,

there were two small figures watching

from one of the windows at the front of Buckingham Palace.

One was young Prince Charles, dressed in a silk suit,

and the other was Princess Anne, and one of them would soon leave

to become the first British child to see his mother crowned monarch.

Princess Anne wasn't quite three, and she was told she was too young.

The only thing that I...remember, if that's the right expression,

is feeling just a touch grumpy that I wasn't allowed to go.

And after that, nothing! So I'm not very...

I should have been aware of being on the balcony,

but I'm not entirely sure whether I was aware of that,

or whether you see photographs and think, "I must have remembered it."

-Yes.

-I'm not sure that I do.

A novel aspect of the Coronation was that it was televised.

Both Churchill and Buckingham Palace courtiers

had been against letting such a vulgar new medium inside the Abbey

but the Queen herself wanted the cameras in.

Back then BBC presenters could almost have been mistaken for...

somebody else.

We take you first to Buckingham Palace.

There we shall see the departure of the Queen's procession to the Abbey.

So she goes on her way towards Westminster.

More than half the adult population,

20 million people, managed to watch.

I was ten at the time,

and I remember my family scraping together their savings

and buying a small black-and-white television to watch it.

But it was hugely exciting, everybody was really uplifted.

For most of the adults, it was the first great event

since the dreary days of the war and the tough days that followed.

It was symbolic of a new life, people thought.

And the Queen looked terrific.

She was beautiful, and she had this dashing consort,

and it was one of those moments in a country

where we tend to be ill at ease with ourselves, a bit nitpicky,

that it was gilded, and it was going to get better.

O God, the Crown of the faithful,

bless, we beseech thee, this crown

and so sanctify thy servant Elizabeth,

upon whose head this day thou dost place it

for a sign of Royal Majesty.

The things which I have here before promised

I will perform and keep, so help me God.

As a historian put it at the time,

no monarch was ever crowned

more fully in the presence of the people.

And yet there was one moment in the ceremony

where the cameras were kept away,

which was veiled and never seen then or since,

and it happened here,

when the Queen was anointed with the holy oil.

Because, for the Queen, being called by God was not a metaphor.

It was absolutely serious.

ALL: God save the Queen. God save the Queen.

God save the Queen.

What do you think that meant to her in a direct, spiritual way?

I think it meant a profound sense of vocation about all this.

Not simply stepping into a role, exercising a function, but actually

becoming a certain kind of person, which is what a vocation is about.

I know it mattered a great deal to her

that in the months leading up to the coronation,

the then Archbishop of Canterbury provided her with a little book

of private prayers to use, which she still has.

And clearly, she took that entirely seriously,

as a matter of spiritual formation.

At times of difficulty,

and certainly in the midst of a hugely demanding and busy life,

she comes across as somebody who is at ease,

serene, confident, and that gives me the impression

that her faith is something that she really can draw upon

and makes a great difference to her life.

So, quite a day.

Exciting, but exhausting, all those hours and hours

of standing and remembering and concentrating and greeting.

And the waving of hands and the noise of the crowds. A long day.

And ahead of her, a long life of much the same thing.

For the Queen, the 1950s would be the most glamorous years,

when she was a young and glittering international icon,

buoyed by the barely critical enthusiasm of the patriotic

post-war press and broadcasters.

She could have been viewed as some sort of global celebrity,

but she represents something rather more enduring than that.

She doesn't care for celebrity and I think it's very important

to be able to retreat inside and be able to collect one's thoughts

and collect your ideas and the way things are going

and then to sort of move forwards

and to be able to project those ideas and those thoughts to other people

and I think she does that extremely well.

In order to project those ideas, the Queen began an annual tradition,

which has carried on to this day,

one which allows her to be heard and seen.

Happy Christmas.

It's Christmas 1957, and sitting here in the library at Sandringham

at this desk, which had been used

by her father and her grandfather before her, the Queen did something

that no British monarch had ever done before.

She made a television broadcast.

King George V and then King George VI

had made radio broadcasts at Christmas.

During the Second World War, they'd been very important.

But this was something different.

The Queen was having to deal with the new medium of television.

And furthermore, she was having to broadcast completely live,

which is quite an ordeal.

25 years ago, my grandfather broadcast the first

of these Christmas messages.

Today, is another landmark

because television has made it possible for many of you

to see me in your homes on Christmas Day.

There's something wonderful

in the way these old, familiar, warm-hearted words

of the traditional Christmas message never seem to grow stale.

No longer live, but recorded, she's now done 54 of these

and she's known in the trade as One-Take Windsor.

Clothes-wise, does it look all right on the background?

A pro who knows about lighting

or the sound mic picking up a flight overhead.

Aeroplane?

And she's relaxed into this.

..something else... LAUGHTER

As to content, it's serious and sincere, rather than surprising.

This is the real Queen on what matters most to her -

faith, family, the Commonwealth and the military.

This year, I'm speaking to you from the Household Cavalry barracks

in Windsor, because I want to draw attention to the many servicemen

and women who are stationed far from home this Christmas.

Her support for the British forces has always been fantastic.

Second to none.

I personally, being her grandson, as well as her employee,

it's a huge honour.

It's fantastic for me.

The guys that I spend time with at work, undoubtedly have huge

amounts of pride, the fact that they work for such a fantastic woman.

I mean it really is that simple for us.

I certainly recognise that much has been achieved in my lifetime.

Like the rest of her life, the Christmas message

is about just that.

The message, not the personal image.

The Queen is no doubt proud of many things, especially her family.

What she doesn't seem to be is vain.

Even though her image is inescapable.

When she was born in 1926, the BBC had barely started.

Films were still silent.

And we now live in a world where there's 24-hour news,

we live in a world of IT, of Facebook, of Twitter,

all of which means that she is

the most remorselessly represented figure

probably ever to have lived in human history.

It is an amazing thought.

Even when we're barely aware of her,

the Queen's image is stamped on our imaginations.

Get paid, the Queen is with you.

Go and buy a drink, the Queen's there too.

For though she may lack vanity, the Queen's been very protective

of her image as monarch.

When Tony Benn tried to remove her head

from British stamps in the 1960s, he was thwarted.

This rebellious decade also brought a tougher media atmosphere

and satirical mockery.

Journalists were more questioning

and less deferential than in the first years of her reign.

The media is a professional intruder.

It wouldn't work if it didn't.

That's what it's doing all the time.

So you can't complain about it.

The monarchy's response to the anti-establishment 1960s

and a greater media curiosity was to agree to let some light in

with an observational documentary called Royal Family.

-What are you doing here? Good morning.

-I want ice cream.

-Ice cream?

-This is what he really would like.

-He always goes straight for ice cream.

-Yes.

The driving force was a member of the royal family,

or by marriage, John Brabourne, who was a filmmaker

and thought if only people could see what the royal family is like,

they'd feel much, much better disposed towards them.

It's disgusting. It's just a gooey mess that's going to be in the car.

For 75 days, the crew filmed some of the ritual and pomp

of the ceremonial year,

but were also allowed to capture the Royals at home.

We didn't invite them into the bathroom,

I mean, people have judgement!

We don't belong to a secret society!

I don't see why people shouldn't know what's going on.

Much better to know than speculate.

He did have some very strange habits, your father.

I remember when I used to come up to Royal Lodge, I asked when I arrived,

I said, "Where is the King?" They said, "Oh, he's in the garden."

And I went out and there was nothing to be seen except a lot

of terribly rude words and language coming out of a rhododendron bush.

So I eventually found him there hacking away,

wearing a bearskin cap, which was... You know, he was getting...

LAUGHTER

When it was first shown in 1969,

it became the most watched documentary

in British television history

with two thirds of the population watching.

A triumph, except that almost at once there were second thoughts.

-Why did that fall?

-I'm sorry!

Were parts of it a little embarrassing? Too much?

Since the year of its release,

the full version has never been broadcast again.

There was a feeling that this has done all that was hoped of it.

It's restored a sort of respect and affection for the royal family

that, at least within the press and the media,

didn't seem to be there.

That's it. We've done it, it went very well.

Put it back in the box, and let's not look at it again.

Very little happening to them.

Once you're there at the Royal barbecue

and you see the sausages sizzling, there's an extra layer

of penetration and expectation that's created for the future.

And the problem with all these things

is not the film that gets made with careful supervision,

but what happens next?

And we were all greedy in the media.

We wanted to take it a stage further.

The film, Royal Family,

that I don't remember a great deal about.

It was done when I was only eight, nine.

That was the moment when the veil was lifted, to a certain extent,

and the interactivity...

And it's just got greater and greater and greater.

-No, Andrew!

-Come around this side.

The 1970s was a relatively easy decade for the Queen's family,

with Prince Charles as a bachelor in his naval uniform,

or careering around on polo ponies.

Princess Anne taking part in the 1976 Olympics,

relatively innocent times.

But for the country, they were hard times.

Industrial strife, inflation, angst about national decline.

So when the Queen's Silver Jubilee arrived in 1977,

there was a certain amount of uneasiness.

Many socialists argued that the celebrations would be

a waste of public money.

Some handed out Roll On The Red Republic badges

and punk rockers sang God Save The Queen, but not in a good way.

CHEERING

A Royal salute to Her Majesty the Queen.

In the event, the Silver Jubilee was a great success.

I remember the national celebration day.

And just the staggering size of the crowds.

And the noise,

the cheering.

It was the most infectious atmosphere,

and then going out onto the balcony.

I hadn't really registered

particularly how important the year was.

Looking back, you can see how it just caught everybody's imagination,

and it just became a bigger and bigger event.

But the Silver Jubilee turned out to be a prelude

to the most melodramatic story of the Queen's reign.

From 1980 onwards, a more aggressive media had a fresh target to hunt.

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Lady Diana! Lady Diana! Lady Diana!

What do you think, above all,

caused the change to the world that we live in now?

In two words, Rupert Murdoch. He bought the Sun newspaper.

I was there on day one

and became involved in Royal stories quite early on.

And it's quite clear

that he didn't want to belong to that old school at all.

He wanted to treat them like ordinary people.

And most of all, with which I agreed,

he wanted them treated as news stories.

His newspapers all fell in love with Diana,

because of course, she was a kind of superstar,

which of course, the Queen is not.

My editors once said to me,

"The trouble is, with the Queen and Prince Philip,

"they're not good box office."

Now, Murdoch was only interested in good box office.

As Lady Diana entered the hall for the concert,

there were audible admiring gasps from those present.

His lady had well and truly arrived in a manner few of those present

were likely to forget in a hurry.

The Queen, in many ways, and Prince Charles,

were very much ignored.

She was the number one attraction.

This woman was just a gift for the newspapers, a gift for television.

And she was not just a great member of the royal family,

but she was a megastar.

A staggering 750 million people around the world tuned in to watch

the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

But the Queen was soon becoming uneasy about the pressure

journalists were piling on her daughter-in-law.

Fleet Street editors were called to Buckingham Palace

by Michael Shea, the Queen's then press secretary.

When they turned up, the doors opened, and in walked the Queen

who then proceeded to give them a severe dressing down

over what she thought was harassment of Princess Diana.

In particular, there had been an incident

where Diana had gone into a sweet shop in Tetbury,

the village where Highgrove is situated,

and had been pursued by photographers.

And a lone voice piped up, that of the then editor

of the News Of The World, Barry Askew, who said,

"Well, Ma'am, couldn't she have sent one of her servants for the chocolates?"

And the Queen said, "Mr Askew, that is

"one of the most pompous remarks I've ever heard in my life."

The editor left his post weeks later.

And as their marriage broke down,

both Princess Diana

and Prince Charles

turned to journalists to tell their side of the story.

Diana, who was a child of this media culture,

who takes it for granted that she should pose for the cameras

and that she should know the first names of the cameramen

and the reporters, and then actually confide in them.

And then, even as her marriage starts breaking down,

sits in cars in Kensington Gardens,

pouring her heart out to sympathetic journalists.

This is the absolute opposite of the Queen's attitude.

She's from the reticent, buttoned-up wartime generation.

She doesn't give interviews.

The only time she's spoken about her life came in 1992

for a BBC documentary, Elizabeth R, to mark the 40th year of her reign.

This was the period

of the young Diana,

the young Sarah Ferguson.

In the family, they were attracting the attention.

You tended not to get very much coverage of the Queen.

I think there was a feeling that perhaps it would not be a bad idea

to remind people of the Queen's role.

And the words we heard were about her duties.

They were about other people, not herself.

-THE QUEEN:

-I'm always absolutely fascinated by the people who come here.

All the things that they've done.

I think that's very important.

The system does discover people who do unsung things, you know?

And I think that's very satisfactory.

I think people need pats on the back sometimes.

It's a very dingy world, otherwise.

But it was the absence of words

which created the biggest media storm of the Queen's reign

when in 1997, on the sudden death of Princess Diana in a Paris car crash,

the Queen stayed at Balmoral for another four days.

For the Queen,

I think it was a very difficult thing for her to balance.

Her first priority was to look after her grandchildren

and make sure that they were properly cared for

and helped through this period of grieving,

when there was all this huge furore going on around.

But, at the same time, obviously, for the country,

because Diana was revered and adored,

there was a need for her to be there with the country.

I remember being in my room in Buckingham Palace

and the crowd lining Birdcage Walk,

waiting for her car to come back down.

And there was a very quiet and quite threatening atmosphere.

-Almost a mutinous feeling?

-Almost a mutinous feeling.

The moment the car appeared, people started to clap.

And the whole atmosphere changed.

The very fact of just responding and returning to the Palace,

and becoming the public figure again,

not the private, grieving family, sort of did it.

She took this one step further,

using the media herself to talk to the nation.

What I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother,

I say from my heart.

First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself.

She was an exceptional and gifted human being.

In good times and bad,

she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh,

nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.

What she was saying to the country was, "Look, you have to understand,

"this is my family and I am approaching this as a grandmother.

"But I acknowledge my duty to you as Queen."

And it was interesting.

When she realised that that's what she had to do, she did it.

By the way, those words in that speech were her own.

They weren't written by New Labour?

They were absolutely not written by New Labour.

And the very personal touch was actually hers.

It was a terrible time for the Queen,

as for the rest of the royal family.

And, as the media has kept changing, so has the Monarchy.

These days, the British Monarchy has a Facebook page,

a Royal Channel on YouTube and a Twitter page -

though no tweets from the Queen herself.

That doesn't seem quite right or likely.

Is she in touch with what's going on in your generation?

She's on Facebook.

Certainly Buckingham Palace is using some of the social networking sites.

That's the nature of the world today.

You have to be in touch, to a certain extent.

I think the wonderful thing about the Queen is that she's timeless.

She's in touch with every generation, just instinctively,

because she is this matriarch of society now.

Reading and responding to the British public mood is a daily art.

But the mood in the Queen's other realms is crucial, too.

Jamaica now wants to end the Royal connection,

while there are republican movements in countries

such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

As with the changing media at home, the Queen has had to cope

with some tricky challenges.

'Gliding through Sydney Heads, the sleek white liner Gothic

'brings Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to the threshold of Australia.

'Thousands line...'

In 1954, she arrived, newly crowned,

in Australia, where she was an unknown quantity.

This was the first visit of a reigning monarch.

She hadn't faced a tour on this scale before.

So how would she cope and how would they react?

It's reckoned that three-quarters of the adult population

turned out to cheer.

About half of the three million people who cheered the Royal couple

slept on the pavements all night for a glimpse of this historic scene.

The Queen is Queen of Australia only because in 1770 a bold explorer,

Captain Cook, was bouncing along the coast and, obeying orders,

planted a flag and said, "On behalf of George III, we'll have this!"

Australia has long been

an independent and very powerful country,

full of people from all around the world,

many of whom have absolutely no connection to Britain.

Even in modern planes, it's an 18-hour flight from London to here.

Put like that, it seems bizarre that the Queen reigns here.

In 1986, the Australia Act formally severed

any rights of the United Kingdom to interfere in Australian politics

and references to the Queen

were removed from the country's Oath of Allegiance.

Independence for Australia! No Queen!

In 1999, however,

a hard-fought referendum came down narrowly in favour of monarchy.

Today, members of the Australian Republican Movement

are still calling for radical change.

We think that we've outlived the role

that a British Queen can play in Australia.

In the time of Empire and then in more traditional days of monarchy,

to have a British monarch as our head of state

and to have her representative, the governor general,

as the de facto head of state

was probably a system that's worked well enough in the past,

but the time to move on has come.

So, in October 2011, how might the Queen be received

on her 16th visit to Australia?

The press is full of questions,

asking whether this is the last time she'll visit.

She certainly puts in the legwork, taking in Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Wherever she goes, the mood on the streets is sunny.

-Three cheers for the Queen! Hip-hip!

-Hooray!

-Hip-hip!

-Hooray!

-Hip-hip!

-Hooray!

She finds plenty of the old British spirit

at events such as this garden party.

You've got some nice music, you've got the canapes and little cakes.

It's a little bit like Buckingham Palace.

Well, only a little bit.

At Buckingham Palace, they offer you a very nice cup of tea.

Here, we are in Australia and you get something more interesting...

Unless you're working.

There's no doubt that the visit of a traditionalist octogenarian monarch

to this sun-baked continent will have its odd moments.

The Queen has kept her dignity travelling in many Royal vehicles.

A golf-buggy complete with equerry and Royal Crest is something else.

In the past, the Queen has explained away her dourer expressions

by saying that often she's just trying not to giggle.

Well, this may be one of those moments.

In Australia's national capital, Canberra,

the Prime Minister Julia Gillard holds a reception for the Queen.

She's said to be republican-minded,

but there's little evidence of that today.

Many heads of state and government are welcomed within these walls.

But in this, the home of Australian democracy,

you are a vital constitutional part, not a guest.

Just as in this nation you can only ever be welcomed

as a beloved and respected friend.

And she's not the only welcome member of the royal family.

The Queen's grandson has made several visits,

the last in March 2011, in the wake of the floods and the cyclones

which hit Queensland and Victoria.

Prince William really touched the hearts of Australians,

including talking to those who had lost family members,

who had lost their mother, and was able to talk to them

about his own feelings about what that was like

in his own experience.

So it was a very emotional, intense engagement.

His visit and his wedding has boosted enthusiasm for the monarchy.

People stood for hours to catch a glimpse of him,

there, as he was, to represent his grandmother.

When I came back, I had a letter from her saying congratulations,

well done, it was a very good trip.

Words like that, there is a lot of gravitas behind them.

You feel you've done a good thing.

It's words like that that mean an awful lot.

The Queen ends her journey in the remote city of Perth,

venue for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting,

held once every two years.

As Head of the Commonwealth, the Queen tries to open every meeting.

She considers this organisation

one of the greatest achievements of her reign.

You're in the way! You're in the way!

By the end of her father's reign, the Empire had been wound up.

Now, newly-independent states could reject the British Monarchy

and choose republicanism, and yet stay inside the grouping

as part of the Commonwealth.

Of the 54 members today, only 16 have the Queen as Head of State.

The Commonwealth is not one of the world's essential organisations.

But it's a very popular club,

even for countries that were never part of the British Empire

and don't speak English.

It is perhaps the only political passion

that the Queen is allowed to express.

She's called it the original World Wide Web.

But, essential or not, it's popular with members big and small.

I think, as a Head of the Commonwealth,

she has given inspiration, she has given encouragement.

And, indeed, by her very presence on every CHOGM,

she came to my country, Port of Spain, when we hosted CHOGM in 2009.

She was in Port of Spain there.

She's gone to every part of the Commonwealth.

She's been referred to as the glue

that binds the Commonwealth together.

And I think the stability and certainty of her role

and her pursuit of Commonwealth values,

of democratic values, has helped bind the Commonwealth together.

These Commonwealth visits,

a lot of people, particularly in Britain, I suspect,

scratch their heads and wonder what they're really for.

"Does it matter any more?"

Well, the Commonwealth is an amazing network.

It has more than a quarter of the world's population,

more than a quarter of the world's countries.

It actually has an increasing share of the world's economic output.

And so, a remarkable network is something actually more relevant,

as the 21st-century goes on,

than perhaps it was at the end of the 20th century,

because we live in a networked world now.

From the start, she saw the value

and the benefits of the Commonwealth.

And I think she's really tried to explore and expand it

and make it more of a global institution.

There's two billion people in the Commonwealth and growing.

More people want to join all the time, don't they?

That is testament to her, it really is.

Her leadership, her guidance,

is what's really seen the Commonwealth through.

The Queen made a promise to uphold the Commonwealth

and she takes it very seriously.

In 2009, the actor and writer Kwame Kwei-Armah set out

to replicate the Queen's first-ever Commonwealth tour

for a Channel 4 series to try to discover what its impact had been.

What was very interesting for me about making this documentary about the Queen is I went in

slightly fascinated by power and by how power presents itself,

and came out actually an admirer of the Queen's work ethic.

Actually, I don't feel ashamed to say that, being a spirited republican.

Actually, my understanding is that she really does understand

the world of high politic.

Really understands and cares for her position and her job,

and her work ethic seems to be absolutely magnificent.

But what of the future of the Commonwealth without her?

Her heir will not automatically become head.

It will be up to the Commonwealth leaders to decide.

Do you think the Commonwealth will survive in its form after the Queen?

Absolutely, because it's almost impossible to disentangle,

because there are this myriad of connections.

It's not just about heads of government.

It's not just about sport.

There are so many other different connections

that you cannot disassemble it now.

By the end of this trip, it's absolutely obvious

that the Queen's visit has been hugely popular.

Chinese Australians, Japanese Australians, Indian Australians

are among those waving flags when the Queen and the Duke

arrive for what's billed as the world's largest barbecue.

Around 100,000 people turn up in Perth.

"I wish she'd stop coming," said one leading republican.

"She sets the cause back 20 years every time she does."

Once again, we will return to the United Kingdom with fond memories

of our time here and the warm Australian welcome we have received

on our 16th visit to this beautiful country.

After all those head-shaking stories

about this being the last trip to Australia,

and perhaps the last time a monarch will ever visit,

well, by the end, neither of these things seems particularly likely.

If she can make it back, she will.

And even that republican Prime Minister

doesn't see a republic looming any time soon.

Right now, I think in the life of the Australian nation,

it is not the question at the forefront of people's minds.

We are a wonderful democracy, a vibrant democracy.

Ultimately, I believe Australians will have their say again

on our ongoing constitutional arrangements.

But it's not the centre of national life or national debate at the moment.

The Australian visit also marked a legal change

which will affect the entire future of the British monarchy.

At that Commonwealth meeting, the leaders of the 16 realms

agreed to amend the 1701 Act of Settlement

so that the first-born of Prince William and Kate,

girl or boy, will succeed to the throne,

ending 300 years of monarchical male discrimination.

The process of change for an institution like that is constant.

You constantly have to change and adapt.

That's the best way of maintaining what we have.

And I think this was the right time to make this change.

The Queen is now the oldest-lived monarch in British history.

Hip hip, hooray!

Summer 2012 saw her Diamond Jubilee celebration.

A Diamond Jubilee is a very rare event.

This country has only seen one before.

In 1897, Queen Victoria marked hers

at the zenith of Britain's worldwide empire, with plenty to celebrate.

Frail, though at 78 rather younger than our Queen,

Victoria enjoyed every minute.

"The cheering was quite deafening.

"Every face seemed to be filled with real joy.

"I was much moved and gratified."

Today, as at earlier celebrations in the Queen's reign,

times seem tough and the future uncertain.

But the historian's perspective suggests

this may mean that Jubilees matter more, not less.

If you live in a republic, let's take the United States of America,

and you think about the periods of history

that the country's chopped up into,

it's four years for a president, eight if you're lucky,

and it's 100 years for centenaries or centennials.

That's about it, really.

If you have a monarchy, especially if you have the present Queen,

who has reigned for 25 years, then 50 years, then 60 years,

what you get is this sequence of Jubilees

which provides you with the opportunity

for structured retrospection, looking back 25 years,

50 years, 60 years, that otherwise you don't have.

The 2002 Golden Jubilee saw the Queen tour the country

and the weekend itself saw a million people flock to The Mall

to show they still cared for their monarch.

For the first time, the Queen allowed Buckingham Palace

to be the setting for a pop concert, which opened live from the rooftop.

BRIAN MAY PLAYS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

Was this something you particularly wanted to do for the Queen?

Yes. For me, yes. For many reasons, really,

because in a sense, the Queen was...

The other Queen?

Of course, THE Queen. She presided over the birth of rock 'n' roll,

which I pointed out at the time.

In a sense, I was symbolising

50 years of her reign and 50 years of rock 'n' roll.

But 2002 was also a year of family sadness.

In the run up to the Golden Jubilee weekend,

the Queen's mother and her sister, Princess Margaret,

died within weeks of one another.

Losses which struck the Queen hard.

We all knew that, inevitably,

Queen Elizabeth was going to have to die soon

because of her age.

But I think that...

And poor Princess Margaret had become so ill with various strokes

that, in a way, it was probably almost a merciful release.

There is no doubt that losing your mother and your sister

in the same brief period is really hard.

Because both of them, in a way, had a very close relationship,

pretty well on a daily basis.

And that's pretty hard, to lose

probably your closest sounding boards in such a short space of time.

Part of getting over the experience is to keep going.

OK, in a way, that sounds a bit traditional and a bit old-fashioned,

but I don't believe that's necessarily bad.

I think that gives you a way of dealing with things.

I was 12 when she died.

So I remember, the last few years, we spent a lot of time together.

She, again, was this energy

when you walked into the room.

You just felt she was there

and everyone listened and learned and sat with her.

It was just another silent, great being in the room.

She is a very special lady.

But only as you get older,

do you really appreciate,

because when I was growing up, it was just Gangang.

-Yes.

-And now, it's like, "No, oh, my goodness."

It sort of takes you by surprise a little bit.

2012, Diamond Jubilee year was marked,

with the release of new stamps and coins.

The Queen and Prince Philip criss-crossed the United Kingdom,

and June saw an extra Bank Holiday over the central weekend of celebrations.

And we are now celebrating the life and service

of a very special person over the last 60 years.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

2,012 beacons flared around the country and the Commonwealth

and the River Thames saw the splash and eddy of a rain-soaked Jubilee Pageant,

with the gathering of 1,000 boats.

# ..mighty, make thee mightier yet! #

In the run-up to every Jubilee, there's an institutionalised

pessimism on the part of some commentators and some papers,

as if it can never be the same as last time.

But, so far, it always is.

The people come up trumps.

The Marxists always say, "The masses let us down."

Well, the masses don't let the Queen down on any of her Jubilees.

I don't believe that there's any real risk of a Jubilee flopping.

Au contraire.

This gloomy foreplay is always confounded, and long may it be so.

Throughout the Queen's reign, of course, she's not stood alone.

Beside her, there's been a constant presence.

It's often said that the Queen has done everything expected of her.

But it's not quite true.

When she was young, all sorts of establishment figures

had all sorts of clever ideas about who she might marry -

the sons of grand landowners, titled guards officers.

But from the time she was a teenager,

she knew exactly who she wanted.

And none of the more conventional candidates

proposed by friends of the family had a chance.

The man who captured her heart was, of course, Prince Philip,

the Duke of Edinburgh, now in his 90s.

Despite heart surgery and recurrent ill health

he has always been there to steer and steady when the water gets choppy.

In November 2011, she made him her Lord High Admiral.

Theirs has been the closest union.

He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments.

But he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years.

Trying to imagine what it is actually like to be the sovereign,

where that's where the buck stops.

In many ways, it can be a very lonely place to be,

because, at the end of the day, everybody's going to defer to you.

Having somebody there with which you can share that load,

I think, is really important and I think the Duke of Edinburgh

has been able to do that particularly well

without ever stepping across that magic line.

I think the story of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh,

is the unrealised success story of the Monarchy.

Here is a man, a man's man, a no-nonsense man,

who has managed, throughout his life,

with total loyalty, not to upstage his wife.

He's been popularly known

for his salty and sometimes crotchety sayings

but the truth is that, for a long time,

this was a restlessly reforming figure,

once voted the most popular member of the royal family.

Chivvying British business,

taking risks like letting television cameras into the palaces,

appearing on television to promote wildlife, and helping urban youth,

from his Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, to campaigning for children's playing fields.

-We want to see the boss!

-Please, we want to see you.

What do you want to see me about?

-We want more playing fields.

-Well, you've come to the right place.

And he gave up his naval career to spend his life by her side.

Some people said he could have gone all the way to the top.

As a professional, he could have been sitting in your uniform.

I think all the indications of the manner

in which he's conducted his Royal duties since 1952-3

indicate that he had everything that was appropriate to doing my job.

The Queen may be head of the nation,

but he is still head of the family.

The support that he gives to my grandmother

is phenomenal.

Um... I mean, I'm still doing engagements by myself, you know,

William's now got Catherine.

Other members of the family have their other halves,

which makes a huge difference.

And regardless of whether my grandfather seems to be

doing his own thing, wandering off like a fish down the river, the fact that he's there.

I personally don't think that she could do it without him,

especially when they're both at this age.

So, 60 years on the throne,

quite an achievement for this small woman with a world-familiar face,

1,000 years of history at her back,

who, since a twist of fate at the age of ten,

has known her destiny.

I hope you don't feel I've been stalking you too much in the last 18 months. I've been pursuing you.

-I've seen you in the background.

-In the background all the time.

For her children and grandchildren, it's a different story.

Next in line of succession,

the Prince of Wales is the oldest heir apparent in British history.

Half the battle, isn't it, is how to adapt in the best way

without losing that element of continuity.

Not easy.

So you sort of feel your way gently, you know.

And her legacy also, of course,

lies in the hands of her eight grandchildren.

There's quite a lot of pressure on someone like me, as a junior boy,

coming through, because of the example the Queen has set.

Whilst she's still there, providing such a good example,

it allows me to learn and to develop and to be able to understand better

what the role plays, and I think she defines it brilliantly.

Every time I find myself whingeing

about why I have to put on a dinner jacket and go and do this and that,

and recently I've been thinking to myself, I can't complain.

At the end of the day, she has put this country way before...

way before anything that she'd ever want to do.

You know, it was...it's her job, understandably,

but she, at a very young age, was put in a position

that I would love to see anybody handle.

And I don't think they would be able to as well as she has.

Family is a massive thing in her life.

And even though she is the monarch, she's the most caring...

Just a person that you could actually go to and ask anything

and we all have massive respect for her

and, you know, love her to bits.

Just the consistency that she has shown

throughout those 60 years,

the support that she's had from the family, from Grandpa,

the support that she's given to her family, as well.

And, you know, don't forget, she may have visited

however many countries it's been in the last 60 years

and had so many engagements and this and that and the other,

but she's also been a mother

and grandmother and now a great-grandmother.

And to get that balance,

and do both so incredibly well, is probably her greatest tribute.

Take a bow, Savannah,

daughter of the Princess Royal's son Peter Phillips and his wife Autumn,

the Queens's first great-grandchild.

Two years later she was joined by sister, Isla Elizabeth,

and the great-grandchildren will become three

with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's child who, boy or girl,

will become third in line to the throne.

Queen Elizabeth II has been part of all our lives for 60 years

doing her quiet, phlegmatic, relentless best.

During her reign, she's been a witness

to the most rapid changes in society.

For more than 21,000 days since the age of 25,

she has dedicated her life as the servant of her people.

She's seen triumph

and disaster,

family heartache and family delight,

and she has come through the rapids into calmer waters.

I've seen the Queen over the years

and I'm just awe-inspired by her ability to listen,

to consider, and to be able to alter things and suggest things.

That's where she's been so clever, I think.

Her ability to keep pace with the changes,

understand what those changes mean,

but also that the role of the Monarchy doesn't change very much,

in that sense, so that degree of continuity and constancy remains.

No reason for that not to be able to go on, I hope.

But if these are calmer waters for the Queen,

they're hardly calm times for her country.

Will Great Britain survive?

Or will Scotland leave?

How will the British deal with the rest of Europe,

now struggling with its greatest crisis since the Second World War?

And in hard economic times,

how well will we hang together, as one people?

That's politics.

But the state is more than its politicians.

-And what about the Libyan thing?

-That was...

One of the things you want for the Prime Minister is to have a safe space

where they can talk very openly about what's working and what's not,

and actually to have someone really senior, really independent,

really discreet, who will have those discussions.

And very wise and has seen it all before.

That's priceless, in my book.

You think, in our lives, how many mistakes we all make,

politically, professionally, personally.

I mean, it is extraordinary that in 60 years,

she has just been an unbelievable model public servant

and we've been so lucky to have someone like that on the throne

for such an extraordinarily long period.

Confronted by trouble and argument,

the British have someone at the top of the tree who didn't fight

or elbow her way there,

who's there...because she's there.

Modern monarchy is not inevitable. It's not a part of nature.

It's a choice.

The Windsor dynasty was created

at a time of crisis and national soul-searching.

And for 60 years, this Queen has reigned,

knowing that monarchy works

when it sustains and supports the democracy.

In the future, as in the past,

the British monarchy will not be made by monarchs,

or by princes or princesses,

or by politicians.

In the end, as in the past,

it depends on the people who turn up and the people who don't.

It's in THEIR hands.

It's in OUR hands.

I declare before you all that my whole life,

whether it be long or short,

shall be devoted to your service

and to the service of our great imperial family

to which we all belong.

I think she's brought life, energy and passion to the job.

She's modernised and evolved the monarchy like no other

and it just shows the strength of women at the top.

I think it's fantastic and she's done...

You know, she's really set the bar very, very high.

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