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This eight-part series interviews the Queen's Prime Ministers, members of the Royal Household and closest friends, to build a uniquely personal picture of Elizabeth, the woman, the mother, the Queen.
“A look at Elizabeth II's life”
2018
The first instalment charts her birth in April 1926, which protocol dictated had to be attended by the Home Secretary, and her childhood years, which included her first meeting with the then 18-year-old Prince Philip of Greece. The episode ends in 1952, where on a tour of Kenya, the Queen received news of her father, George VI's early death.
First-person testimony from royal friends and eye-witnesses, and archive footage tells the story of the Queen's first decade on the throne. As she learned the ropes of monarchy, Elizabeth faced many tough decisions, including how to modernise the British Empire, manage a critically ill prime minister, and balance her royal duties with her family.
A look at Elizabeth II's life in the 1950s and 1960s, how she tried to make the monarchy more accessible, and the lesson she learned from the 1966 Aberfan disaster. William Heseltine also reveals how, as her Press Secretary, he tried to make the Queen more approachable to the media.
Using testimony from royal friends and eye-witnesses and archive footage, this episode reaches the 1970s and explores how the Queen faced both a hostile nation and scandal within her family, which threatened the popularity of the monarchy itself.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Elizabeth was thrilled to see her sons married, but also faced a strained relationship with her first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Though the women worked hard to present a united front, they were dogged by press rumours of trouble between them.
Examining the monarch's troubled 1990s years, including 1992, which saw the collapse of three of her children's marriages, and the fire which destroyed much of Windsor Castle. Plus, how the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales presented the Queen with the gravest challenge of her reign.
A look at Elizabeth II's life since 2000, an era when she lost her sister and mother, but also enjoyed happier times, including her Golden Jubilee, and the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles.
A look at Elizabeth II's life since the start of the decade, including her historic state visit to the Republic of Ireland in 2011, and the celebrations for her Diamond Jubilee year in 2012.
James D'Arcy
Narrator
