Weird flex, but okay.
The Queen married Prince Philip in 1947, over 60 years ago.
It was, of course, a different time.
The world looked different, and apparently so did the wedding gifts.
According to the 2014 documentary The Majestic Life of Queen Elizabeth II, the newlyweds received around 1700 wedding presents on their big day.
However, apparently a number of the gifts were specifically for Queen Elizabeth.
Royal biographer Robert Lacey said:
“One of the charming things is that, I think, of the 1700 or so wedding presents that were officially listed, several hundreds were nylon stockings, which loyal ladies in the country decided to send to the princess.”
Tights, like.
In 1941, as a result of the war, Britain introduced clothes rationing to conserve materials and valuable products, and nylon stockings were some of the first items to go.
So actually, there’s a sweet meaning behind the gifts for the Queen.
Interestingly, Elizabeth and Philip also received a piece of cotton lace from Mahatma Gandhi that he spun himself and had embroidered with the words Jai Hind, meaning Victory for India.
Very fancy!
According to the documentary, “a box of apples, 500 tins of pineapple, two dozen handbags and 12 bottles of sloe gin were also officially listed as their gifts.”
All in all, not a bad haul lads.
