Our little Princess Lilibet
ON the platform at Ballater station, on September 17, 1934, reporters seized gratefully on the unaffected liveliness of one of the royal party gathered to greet the newest recruit to George V’s family. Princess Marina of Greece, engaged to the King’s youngest son, George, Duke of Kent, was making her first visit to Balmoral; her welcoming party included her fiancé’s sister-in-law, the Duchess of York, and the Duchess’s eight-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth. ‘Obviously excited’, the little princess danced round and round on the red carpet until, noted the Gloucester Citizen: ‘Princess Marina… stooped down to kiss her future niece.’
‘Lady Cynthia claimed she had “never met a child who seemed more in love with life”’
Almost a century ago, excitement and liveliness lay at the heart