Elizabeth adores her.

‘You’re right, it’s not a flattering look,’ she tells the dog now. She is in her ATS uniform: khaki jacket, khaki shirt, khaki skirt, khaki stockings, even khaki knickers, and for a change from khaki, heavy brown shoes. The belt around the jacket makes her look bulky.

Her mother looked appalled when she first saw Elizabeth in it. ‘Oh, darling!’ was all she could say in a faint voice.

But Elizabeth is proud of her uniform, prouder of it than of the crown and ermine robe she wore to her father’s coronation. She polishes every button herself and on this day of victory, she wants to look not like a princess but like someone who, for a short time at least, shared in the war effort.

It took a lot of badgering to get the King to allow her to join the ATS at all. Or perhaps badgering is the wrong word. Elizabeth listens quietly, nods, and then asks again in a reasonable voice. She never gives up. She wore her father down eventually without a single voice being raised.

Joining the ATS was her first venture into the outside world. It hasn’t given her quite as much freedom as she hoped. Every night after the training course she was driven back to Windsor and at lunchtimes she was ushered away from her fellow recruits to eat with the officers. Still, it was exciting to get out and meet some ordinary people after being secluded at Windsor for so long.

It meant she had something different to talk about in her letters to Philip, too.

Everyone is very bored of me talking about piston and cylinder heads. Only Susan never complains! The uniform is horrid but at least it means Margaret isn’t jealous. She can get very sulky if she thinks I’m doing something she wants to do, but she says she has no desire to slide underneath a truck or get her hands filthy changing a tyre. I don’t know why I enjoy it so much. I think it’s because it’s about doing something and not just talking about it.

It is over a year since she has seen Philip. Elizabeth knows her parents are quietly hoping she has forgotten him. They have organised little parties and dances to which they invite suitable young men. The men are all very nice and many have become friends but none of them have fierce blue eyes that drill into hers and demand she gives a proper account of herself. They are charming, but they treat her as a princess.

Philip treats her as an individual, as Elizabeth. He always calls her Elizabeth, too. Family members almost always refer to her as Lilibet but Philip is different. Lilibet is sweet, but it’s a little girl’s name, he said when she asked him why he never called her that. I prefer to think of you as a young woman so Elizabeth seems more appropriate. You don’t mind that, do you?