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.

The Silver Jubilee in 1977 was a big deal - I am just about old enough to remember it, there were street parties and celebrations and even shops rebranding their products, such as the famous 'Jubilade' (cherryade) sold by the Co-op.

Re. looking old in the early 90s - 1992 was Queen Elizabeth's 'annus horribilis' - Charles and Diana separated, as did Andrew and Fergie, Princess Anne got divorced and a fire gutted part of Windsor Castle - so not surprising those events might have aged her.

I remember the Silver Jubilee too, but, apart from Charles & Diana's wedding, I don't remember any big, flag waving royal events until the Golden Jubilee.

This is a bit of an odd question to pose of “Brits” - it completely depends how old you are! To my teenagers, she’s always been a very old lady. I remember her as a middle aged lady - but I suppose the Golden Jubilee cemented in everyone’s mind that she had been monarch for a very long time! But my FIL, who was born a couple of years after she was, still sometimes refers to her as Princess Elizabeth. So it depends!,

As British people are not all the same age obviously we remember the Queen at different points in her life.
What a stupid question!

The late Queen was 37 when I was born and I don't suppose I really took a lot of notice of the monarchy until I was a teen myself. I remember all the fuss of her Silver Jubilee in 1977 when I was 13, and Elizabeth would have been middle aged then.

Obviously only the much older amongst the population will remember her as a young woman, the rest of can only know of her younger years through newsreels and publications.

I don't really understand the question in the OP. Surely the way in which we remember her, in respect of her age, will be determined by how old each of us is? Younger people will be likely to remember her as a significantly old lady. Older people will have memories of her as a middle-aged woman as well as an old lady. And since our earlier memories are more likely to be formative , thoughts of her as middle-aged might be more iconic and salient for us than some of the more recent memories.

I don't really think that any of those individual variations in how she is remembered determine a collective truth about how Brits regard her.

Because she was significantly older than most Brits around today, I think that most of us see her as a 'link to the past'. Even in my youth, when the monarchy still seemed moderately relevant and integral to society, it was already perceived as increasingly archaic. Her status in the public imagination was as a figure that linked history to the present.

The difference now is that both society and the royal family itself have moved on so much that there is now no real significance to that link. It has dwindled into content fodder for period TV dramas and social media.

I think her death was pivotal. By living so very long she preserved some shell of the time when the monarchy had a little bit of genuine traditional and sentimental meaning.

As soon as she was gone, it became much more evident what the monarchy is now: a D-list celebrity gossip machine, buoyed up with inherited wealth and opportunities for money making that are either shady (Prince Andrew) or tacky (Harry and Meghan)

That's not really what the OP is asking, though. She's asking:

a. At what point during her lifetime did people start to see Queen Elizabeth as an 'old woman'.
b. How do people remember after her death - as old, middle aged or young

Those answers will be affected by people's ages but that's why the question is interesting - learning how people older or younger in relation to the queen than you are, perceived her.

This is a de-rail because I don't think my question warrants a new thread.

First, I'll answer OP's question. I am a year older than the King, so I remember TLQE2 as a young woman and a middle-aged woman and an old lady. I think that, as a child, I will have seen a newsreel at the cinema (Warner Pathe news) showing the Queens Mary, Elizabeth and Elizabeth wearing their black veils at the funeral of George VI. Yes, folks, when you went to see a film there would also be a B film and a newsreel. Not all that many people had TVs in Britain in the early 1950s.

Here's my de-rail. Yesterday evening Channel 5 had a programme about royal births, marriages and deaths. Maybe I heard the news at the time of Prince Edward's birth and maybe that photo was in the paper. If so, I don't remember that Prince Philip was present at the birth and I don't recall the photo of HMQE2 in bed with tiny Edward and the other three children. Maybe the photo wasn't in the newspaper we took or in any of the others. Whatever, I liked it.
Did anyone else see it?

Birth of Prince Edward, 1964 | The Royal Watcher

We have all seen lots of photos of her. She was a beautiful woman. When she was older, she looked older. Some Brits might not have seen her when she was younger. It depends on their age and how much they noticed photographs of her, or watched documentaries on the royals.

What a strange question!! How you remember her depends on your age, surely? I remember her as the princess Di years because that is when I started watching news etc. but my most recent memories of her are also as an elderly woman obviously. If you’re in your 80s you’ll remember her as a younger woman.

a. At what point during her lifetime did people start to see Queen Elizabeth as an 'old woman'.
She was heading into early middle age when I was born, and was about 18 years older than my mother, so she seemed old.

b. How do people remember after her death - as old, middle aged or young
Probably as someone in her 70s.

I remember her and Princess Margaret before Princess Elizabeth was married. I remember the wedding listening to.the radio. Princess Margaret was really good looking and glamorous. After the Coronation the Queen went on a tour of the Commonwealth and we were really proud of our lovely young Queen. As a school girl we used to play rounders in St James Park and our teacher called out “look girls it’s the Queen”. She had the most beautiful complexion really pink and rosy. She waved at us and smiled as we cheered.

The question you've asked doesn't make much sense to me, OP.

"Brits" are not a single homogeneous group. Many older people will probably remember the late queen when she was younger. Younger people obviously won't, though they may have seen pictures/footage. Surely this is obvious, isn't it?

Queen Elizabeth II was a year older than my mother, so to me she was always "old" even when she was young! I remember Prince Andrew and Prince Edward being a toddler and a baby.

I’m only 5 years younger than Edward & I remember all the Silver Jubilee events - I even got to shake her hand at one of them. To me she seemed the same age as my aunts. I don’t remember thinking of her as ‘old’ until the Windsor fire, and then she seemed to age again with all the furore around Diana’s death.

She really did seem to age again when Philip died & I remember thinking that she’d suddenly become a typical ‘old lady’ - i.e. she seemed to shrink and stoop more after that.

Mid-40s so my early Royal memories are around Harry's birth and A&S's wedding then going into the early 90s divorces.

The Queen was middle-aged, but old to me. Partly my perception of age, partly her styling being typical of older people. I was around 20 when her mother died, and she had been the elderly figure of the family. I don't remember much about the Golden Jubilee- probably down to my student life.

Charles was always middle-aged although I'd remember him being in his 30s.

She was born the same year as both my grandmothers so I always thought of her as middle aged. Until her mother died I suppose and then she was the oldest generation

I was born in the 1980s and the Queen looked fairly similar to my Nan (the resemblance was possibly encouraged by my Nan in getting the same hairstyle etc!). So she was always an older woman to me, but not an "elderly" one until the last decade of her life - she always appeared to have a very hectic schedule!

She was always an old lady to me, but my grandmother remembers her being a little girl (they were born in a similar era).

It does depend on your age but then most of the people who are alive now are younger than she wound have been (same for when she died), indeed as she lived such a long time there are plenty of “old people” who are quite a bit younger than her and would have seen her as very old when she died. So I’d be willing to bet that most people think of her as being an older woman.

I was born in the mid 80's. The Queen always seemed a bit ageless to me growing up. I think possibly because her image was on the front all all our notes and she'd look like a young woman. Then there would be photographs of her over various decades in schools, hospitals, hotels etc- anywhere shed visited on her tours. Now if I picture her its how she looked in her last few years.

I’m in my 60s and my Mum was a year older than the Queen. You tend to think of your parents as old and I thought of the Queen as old too, not helped by the fashions of the time

She was 44 when I was born. I always picture her as middle aged. Striding around with her dogs.

She was always a sort of nan figure to me , with her nan haircut and nan headscarves and nan shoes . And I am now 10 years older than she was at the 1977 Jubilee. Still seemed nan to me then. I think women in their fifties, sixties and seventies now seem to have many more style options available. Better dental care, skincare, more conscious of maintaining muscle strength, mobility, posture also help not age in that particular way the women of HRH QEII’s generation seemed to do.