hellomagazine.com

LAUGHING QUEEN FEATURES ON BIRTHDAY STAMPS

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11 APRIL 2006

To mark the Queen's 80th birthday later this month, the Royal Mail is to release a unique set of stamps showing little-seen images of the monarch at some of the happiest moments in her life.

The eight pictures, all black and white, show the Queen smiling and laughing. Only two other people appear in the entire set: there is one image of Elizabeth as a five-year-old slumbering in her mother's arms, and another of the young princess with her husband, Prince Philip.

Each picture has been personally approved by the sovereign, and all but two of her eight decades are represented. There were no suitable pictures from the 1920s, and the 1990s - a period which saw the break-up of three of her four children's marriages and included her "annus horribilis" - has also been omitted.

The new stamps, which will be available as a commemorative pack as well as separately, go on release on April 18, three days before the Queen's birthday.

The last stamps specifically to mark the Queen's birthday were issued when she turned 60, but she has been featured in other special editions, such as last year's Trooping the Colour set.