Do Brits recall Queen Elizabeth II as just an elderly figure or can they remember her as middle-aged or young?

[kmo0416]

If you are old enough to remember, is there a specific year or specific time period in which people started to recognise her longevity as sovereign and she became seen as an old woman and a link to the past rather than a young woman or a middle-aged mother? A specific year.

A grandmother-figure vs mother figure vs same age vs younger etc.

We’ve all watched the Queen and that film where she and Margaret partied in the streets of London on VE Day so we know she was didn’t ages at different times 🤷🏻‍♀️

She was a middle aged lady in my memory from her 1977 Jubilee and at the Royal Weddings in the early 80’s.

She must have been quite young when I was little, but Prince Charles was about my DM's age. My DGM was much older, so the Queen seemed somewhere in between. Middle-aged as opposed to elderly.

🤔

She was crowned when I was two years old, I think. So I remember her as being someone who was about the same age as my Mum.

But my Mum didn't leave me with a nanny for three months, I think it was, when I was little.

@user1471453601 , she might have done had she been the monarch.

Since she has (had?) several grandchildren older than me, of course I only remember her as old...

Silly question. Those in there 80s/90s will have different memories to those in thee 40s and again to those in their teens. Nothing to do with nationality.

The was only 4 years older than my Dad. I remember the silver jubilee, so don't think of her only as very old.

Old lady to me

I'm 42 and I only ever really remember her as an older lady.

She was always “granny” old, but then I don’t recall my own grandparents being anything other than pretty old. My grandmas were the age I am now (50ish) when I was born, yet when I look at photos of them they looked way, way older in style than my mates do now. I think it’s mainly the hair!!

It was sort of pressing, given the King died and she had obligations to fulfil as the new monarch. Not like she popped off on a round the world cruise.

A but daft to phrase the title as ‘Brits’ - Obviously our perceptions depend on our age.
And it’s a bit of an odd one anyway. I saw her as a mother because she had children older and a bit younger than me, until she had grandchildren when (blindingly obviously) she was a grandmother.
She might in some ways have seemed a bit younger than she was because she was horse riding and her own mother filled the ‘grandmother’ niche.

She was a grandmother before I was born so always old to me.

I think that adults always looked old when I was a child. I am oldish now but think I look younger than my Mums generation at my age …I hope 🤦‍♀️

Prince Edward is younger than me. Go figure.

When I was a teen the Queen was just a mother and I recall reading magazine articles about her children and Anne stuck out as 'never wanting to have children, I'd rather have a horse' 😂I was aware of the Queen's outfits and so on as my mother was the same age and she adored the Queen (she looked quite like her, too), was always commenting on what she was wearing. She was definitely not a granny figure back then!

She was a little younger than my grandparents. So same as when I was a small child I thought my grandparents were terribly old (when they were in their late 50s…) I always saw her as being old.

That’s an interesting thing to consider. I was born in the late 70s, and I remember the Windsor Castle fire in 1992 quite clearly, and the Queen looking old in the news footage. Plus she had grandchildren by then, so that would have equated to ‘old’ to me.

At that time she had been Queen for 40 years, so the longevity part would be relevant then, but I suspect it was the Golden Jubilee that really cemented it in people’s minds.

Even in photos when she wasn’t that old, she seemed to looked old. I suppose the hair and clothes made her look old. Even Kate ‘aged’ a bit instantly once she had to have her hair and clothes styled in a certain way

Charles, Anne and Edward have always looked years older than they are.

I remember her as middle aged as well as being old. I was a young child when Charles and Diana got married so my early memories of the royals are all focused on the younger ones.

She was 48 when I was born and my most enduring image is of her as she was in the 1980s (in her 50s).

I'm 48 and she's always seemed like an old lady to me.

I'm late 50s never really had much interest in her. In 1980s and poss into 1990s news was all about her kids - Charles and Diana, Andrew and Fergie, Anne and horses, Edward doing something with Andrew Lloyd Webber. I was only really aware of her as someone refusing to abdicate so yes always old in mind.

I do remember noticing that the Queen seemed to suddenly look old, sometime in the early 90s. I think she must have gone grey quite quickly.

The Golden jubilee in 2002 (?) was perhaps when she was recognised as having reigned a long time. I remember there hadn't been any royal celebratory events for a long time.

ETA The Queen Mother died in 2002 so I suppose after that she was the oldest in her family too.