Two nights before the wedding, in the royal tradition, a grand ball was given by the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace. Philip’s cousin Lady Pamela Mountbatten, who was among the 1200 guests, admitted her teenage memories of the wedding day were outdazzled by the ball. It was certainly something to remember after all the years of wartime austerity. The royal estates provided plenty of game, which was prepared by the chefs, and the finest wines and champagnes were brought up from the cellars. The menu, which included lobster mayonnaise, turkey, vanilla soufflé and cherries in brandy, was eaten off state china and in the centre of each round table for eight stood a gold vase filled with pale yellow roses and carnations.

It was all too much for some of the guests and during the evening an Indian maharajah apparently became so drunk he took a swing at the Duke of Devonshire, but no one had a clue as to why. Towards the end of the evening, or more appropriately the following morning, the King led a conga line through the state apartments before the assembled company sat down for breakfast. Mr Carroll Gibbons, one of the King’s favourite bandleaders, played below the organ loft in the ballroom with a programme of foxtrots, waltzes and rhumbas. Personal requests were sent by page to the bandleader, and when the Princess Elizabeth requested a tune that the band did not know there was a flutter of panic. Eventually Gibbons sat down at the piano with only his leading saxophonist. In a moment or two the ballroom was filled with the haunting strains of the tune played on the piano by Gibbons purely from memory, with the saxophonist at his side.

The princess was wearing a dress of vivid coral pink net and delighted in showing off her engagement ring, which had been redesigned by Philip himself from his mother Princess Alice’s own heirloom stones. ‘She looked wonderful,’ said Lady Margaret Colville, the princess’s lady-in-waiting that night. She was ‘effervescent’.

‘Lilibet was a lovely girl, very pretty, and they were in love,’ remembers Lady Pamela Mountbatten, ‘but the horror for him was that she would ultimately be Queen of England. That would put paid to his promising naval career. What would he do for the rest of his life, always two steps behind? I think he thought he was either being very foolish taking this on, or he would have to do it seriously – which is what he has done. The awful thing for them was that they weren’t expecting to have to take on the job till they were in their fifties.’