Photo feature 14 and

July 1965

March 1968

February 1953 The Queen talks to First-Lieutenant Jean Stone and Second-Lieutenant Kathleen Stobart, who ran the rest centre in St John’s church hall, Erith, when the River Thames burst its banks and flooded Belvedere in Kent.

July 1965 The Queen at the Royal Albert Hall for the inaugural meeting of the Army’s centenary celebrations, with General Frederick Coutts, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Michael Ramsey, and the home secretary, Frank Soskice MP.

March 1968 Accompanied by General Frederick Coutts, the Queen arrives to open Booth House hostel in Whitechapel – the largest social project funded by the For God’s Sake Care campaign, launched the year before.

February 1980 The Queen talks to one of the residents at the opening of the new Hopetown, a home for 156 women in Whitechapel. The first Hopetown was opened by Queen Mary in 1931.

December 1996 Territorial leaders Commissioners Dinsdale and Winifred Pender greet the Queen, accompanied by the lord-lieutenant of Greater London, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, at the opening of Edward Alsop Court, a 112-bed homelessness centre in Westminster. Also pictured is Captain Ian Payne. October 1997 The Queen thanks Captain Denise Swansbury, Captain Lynn Gibbs, Major Robert McClenahan and Major Margaret Hardy at Buckingham Palace for providing a mobile canteen service for crowds waiting to sign books of condolence after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Also present were Major Linda Cordner and Lieutenant Mark Rose.

February 2002 Social Services Secretary Lieut-Colonel Alan Hart welcomes the Queen for the reopening of Booth House resettlement centre in Whitechapel after its £8 million refurbishment. This was the Queen’s first official engagement after the death of her sister, Princess Margaret, three days earlier.

December 2020 The Queen, with other members of the royal family, thanks territorial leaders Commissioners Anthony and Gill Cotterill for the Army’s work during the Covid-19 pandemic at an event at Windsor Castle for charity and key workers. Also pictured is Bandmaster Paul Sharman, who led Regent Hall Band in carol playing.

February 1980

God save the Queen!

Lieut-Colonel Jonathan Roberts looks at how the Army papers covered the accession of the Queen in 1952 and her coronation the following year

ELIZABETH II was proclaimed Queen at the age of 25 when her father, King George VI, died on 6 February 1952. ‘God save the Queen!’ exclaimed the cover of the 23 February issue of the War Cry.

The inside pages included a report of The Salvation Army’s memorial service for the King at the Royal Festival Hall, attended by General and Mrs Orsborn, as well as an article about Buckingham Palace – ‘royal home for a hundred years’ – and the ‘happy home life’ the Queen enjoyed as a child. There was also a photo feature showing scenes from her childhood and overseas visits as a young adult, including to Canada with Prince Philip, where she received flowers from Beverley Gardner, the daughter of Salvation Army officers.

That week’s War Cry editorial said: ‘History – and modern history in particular – has provided substantial evidence that no throne may be considered secure unless its base is deeply embedded in the hearts of its occupant’s subjects. Such a throne is that to which Queen Elizabeth the Second has succeeded...

‘Her Majesty … comes of a goodly parentage, not only because her father and mother were king and queen, the first and second persons respectively in the British Commonwealth of Nations, but because they showed their peoples how to live having favour with both God and man. Her Majesty has been trained from her earliest years to follow her parents’ example in striving after the attainment of those high and noble things that do not follow as a matter of course because one is of high and noble birth.’

Quoting from a speech that Elizabeth made to the Commonwealth on her 21st birthday – ‘I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service’ – the editorial concluded: ‘No other young woman in the world has ever faced, or is likely to be called upon to