Almost Queen

This week blue-eyed, brown-haired Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor comes of age. Briton No. SWGC 55-1 to the national registration office. "Betts" to her family, Princess Elizabeth to the world, on her 18th birthday she becomes Heiress Presumptive to the British throne. Should anything happen to her serious, doting father, King George VI, this mannequin-tall (5 ft. 6 1/2 in.), pretty but not yet handsome girl will become Queen. Her great-great-grandmother, Victoria, reached that estate when she was 27 days past 18.

No Fairy Tale. Elizabeth was only a few minutes old when a black-coated, stripe-trousered symbol of British officialdom thrust itself upon her. On April 21, 1926, Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks peered anxiously into her red, squally face, went away to affirm that she had been born. Her life, not exactly woeful, has been like that ever since.

She was an imperious, volatile, high-spirited child. To her stern, regal grandmother Queen Mary, and her gentle, Scottish-born mother Queen Elizabeth, fell the task of curbing her. While others crammed her mind with languages, history and rules of statecraft, they had to strip her spirit of every inclination to caprice. The maternal admonition ran: "You are not a fairy-tale princess, but a real one."

Elizabeth speaks French and German, can drive a motorcar or a speedboat, swims expertly. Like other Britons, she gets 44 clothing-ration coupons a year (about enough for one outfit).

To her father's intense annoyance, Elizabeth's name has been linked in gossip columns with two genealogically suitable young Britons. They are Hugh Denis Charles Fitzroy, Earl of Euston. and Charles John Robert Manners. Duke of Rutland. Both are 25, Etonians. Cambridge men, junior officers in the Grenadier Guards (Elizabeth is their Colonel).

Personal anecdotes about her are carefully winnowed by Sir Eric Mieville. her father's secretary, and only the "suitable" ones become public. Once, in childhood, Elizabeth was asked what she would most like to be. Said she: "A horse."

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