📍Windsor Castle, Windsor SL4 1NJ, UK
1940 – 1945“I was never meant to be queen. I spent my early childhood at 145 Piccadilly and at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, a contented girl with my sister Margaret, our ponies and our corgis — until my uncle gave up the throne and my father became king. When war came in 1939, Margaret and I were sent to Windsor Castle for safety, and the castle became our home for most of the next five years. Its great rooms were stripped of their pictures, the windows blacked out, and we listened to the bombers passing over towards London. To raise money for wool to knit comforters for soldiers, we staged a pantomime every Christmas from 1941 to 1945 in the Waterloo Chamber, with children from the local school — Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, with me playing the principal boy. Audiences of hundreds came. In 1945, at eighteen, I joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service and trained as a driver and mechanic. Windsor was always the home I loved most, and it is where I now rest.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today