Home movie reveals a merry house of Windsor

London: The Royal family have opened up about life off-duty, the Queen’s secret stare and their fears of an assassin’s bullet in a candid and affectionate documentary to mark Her Majesty’s 90th birthday.

Newly released cine films shot by the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Margaret prompt the family to share memories of family occasions and national events in the BBC film ‘Elizabeth at 90 — A Family Tribute’, which was shown in a shortened form on Thursday night and will be broadcast in full on Sunday.

Much of the footage shows the Royal family letting their hair down, by playing on a water slide aboard Britannia, by playing pranks on each other and, in the case of King George VI, by wearing a fake beard.

However, in a more serious moment, the Prince of Wales speaks about his fear of being assassinated, as he watches footage of gunman Marcus Sarjeant firing six blank shots at the Queen as she rode to the Trooping the Colour ceremony in 1981. The Queen, on her horse Burmese, with the Prince of Wales riding behind her, was turning off The Mall towards Horse Guards when Sarjeant, a Royal Marines dropout, fired the shots. The Prince said: “This chap, as it turned out, fired blanks, but we didn’t know at the time.

“It’s one of those things you often think about, riding down The Mall, who might do something crazy, because there’s all sorts of people there. You must continue, that’s the thing, as my Ma certainly did, not suddenly rush off in panic. She is made of strong stuff, you know.”

Meanwhile, Prince Harry admitted he was “bricking myself” when he carried out his first official tour on behalf of the Queen, to the Caribbean in 2012. “I was incredibly nervous,” he said. “There is a huge weight on your shoulders. If you get it wrong she will tell you.”

He also describes the Duke of Edinburgh as a “stud” as he admires footage of him wearing sunglasses with slicked-back hair as a young father. In perhaps the most bizarre archive shown by the BBC, King George VI — then the Duke of York — is shown putting a baby Princess Margaret across his knee and play-spanking her while the young Princess Elizabeth joins in. He also pretends to cut their hair with garden shears, much to their delight. “I’ve had it done, so Margaret has to have it done,” says the Queen as she watches the silent footage.

Later, as her sister plays the fool for the camera, the Queen says: “Typical. Absolutely typical.” The King also shows his keen sense of humour in another clip when he and several other men — and Princess Margaret — wear fake beards to recreate an old photograph. In a later film, Princess Margaret and two friends stick out their tongues, which they have made black, while pulling faces. Margaret Rhodes, the Queen’s cousin, said: “Margaret was always a slightly naughty little girl but always got away with it because she could make her father or mother laugh.”

The Queen could be a little naughty herself. As she plays with a toy pram in a garden, she rams her mother, who is in the way. “Extremely painful,” the Queen comments as she watches. “Then I do it again.”

The Royal family appear to have an urge to bury each other; in one scene young Prince Charles and Princess Anne are buried up to their necks in sand, in another Prince Andrew and Prince Edward are buried to their collars in leaves as they lie in a giant barrow. Holidays figure prominently in the cine films.

At Holkham beach in Norfolk, Prince Charles and Princess Anne dance on the sand with only towels around their waists. Prince Philip careers down a grass slope after his children on a go-kart, falling off at the bottom with his kilt flapping around his thighs. On board the Royal Yacht Britannia, the Duke of Edinburgh and his children take turns to scoot down a slide from one deck to another, skidding on their bottoms across the slippery deck at the end of the slide. “That slide was very popular,” the Queen remarks.

The Duke of Cambridge, meanwhile, disclosed that at family gatherings, “there is a look that the Queen gives you if you’ve overstepped the mark or said something daft. You get a glazed look like she is thinking to herself ‘who is this idiot?’”

Paying tribute to his grandparents’ marriage, he said: “I would love to know their secrets. They are the most lovely couple and I hope Catherine and I have the same sort of future ahead of us, as happily married as they are, for 68 years.”

Asked what she would like to say to the Queen on her birthday, Mrs Rhodes, says: “’I hope that you know how proud the king would be of you if he was able to tell you’. She has carried out her duties as Queen beyond belief.”

The Prince of Wales paid a unique birthday tribute to the Queen by reading a passage from Henry VIII on the World Service as it prepares to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The Prince chose to read Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s speech to King Henry VIII, in which he speaks about the birth of the Queen’s namesake, Elizabeth I. It concludes: “She shall be, to the happiness of England / An aged princess; many days shall see her / And yet no day without a deed to crown it.”

The Daily Telegraph