Queen Elizabeth II will have many tributes paid to her, in her Platinum Jubilee year but she is beginning the event with a tribute to her father, King George VI.
At Windsor Castle, The Queen looked at items from past jubilees, her own and previous monarchs. Wearing a turquoise dress and her familiar three-strand pearl necklace, Her Majesty also wore two aquamarine brooches.
The brooches are older than The Queen’s 70-year reign. She received them as a birthday present from her father in 1944. During an exhibition in 2006, Buckingham Palace described them as: “a pair of Boucheron aquamarine and diamond clip brooches.” They are comprised of baguette, oval and round diamonds and aquamarines.
The Queen wears these brooches on a regular basis. At times, they are connected into a single brooch, other times they are staggered on her shoulder or worn individually. In 2016, Her Majesty wore them during a visit with United States President Barack Obama. She also wore them for her Diamond Jubilee speech in 2012 and for a national address on the 75th anniversary of VE Day in 2020.
Her Majesty is currently at Sandringham, where she traditionally marks the anniversary of her Accession. For her, it is a day of quiet reflection and remembering her father who died at Sandringham in the early hours of February 6 1952.
