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Queen Elizabeth, now 92, has lived a long and fascinating life.
During her reign, she has travelled more extensively than any other monarch, undertaking 261 official overseas visits, including 96 state visits, to 116 different countries.
She has seen 13 prime ministers come and go, from Winston Churchill to Theresa May.
And in her personal life, she’s a mother to four, a grandmother to eight and great-grandmother to six.
But there’s one significant chapter of the Queen’s life that has long been buried in the history books.
This formative time in the Queen’s life came when she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Second World War.
After Britain entered the Second World War in 1939, many of London’s children were evacuated to avoid the frequent aerial bombing.
One senior politician urged the King to take Elizabeth, then 13 and her sister Margaret, 9, to Canada.
But Elizabeth’s mother wouldn’t allow it, saying: “The children won’t go without me. I won’t leave without the King. And the King will never leave.”
So the two Princesses were moved to Balmoral Castle, Scotland, and Sandringham House, Norfolk, where they waited out the war.
But as soon as she was old enough, Elizabeth headed out to make her contribution and was appointed as an honorary second subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service with the service number of 230873.
In 1945, before the war ended, she trained as a driver and mechanic and was given the rank of honorary junior commander, alongside Winston Churchill’s daughter.
This stint gave the Queen some of her most impressive hidden talents: being the only monarch ever who is able to change a spark plug and a tyre.
Royal expert Marlene Koenig showed a long-forgotten letter to Express.co.uk, handwritten by the Queen to a friend.
The letter, written days after her 19th birthday is addressed to “Mary,” and signed “Lillibet”, her nickname used by close friends and family.
The letter tells her friend how she’d “just finished a mechanics course in the ATS which I found most interesting.”
She wrote: “I’ve never worked so hard in my life before, as everything I learned was brand new to me – all the offices of a car and all the intricacies of map reading.”
At the end of the war in Europe, on Victory in Europe Day, Elizabeth and Margaret famously slipped into the street and mingled anonymously with the celebratory crowds in the streets of London.
The Queen said later in a rare interview: “We asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves.
“I remember we were terrified of being recognised … I remember lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief.”
In post-war times, the Queen retained the knowledge she learned in the ATS.
She has loved cars ever since and is famous for driving herself around her country estates.
In fact, the Queen is the only person in Britain who can drive without a license or number plate on her car.
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