Elizabeth and Philip: 20 November 1947 (National Archives)

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As Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip celebrate their 60 years of marriage, the National Archives presents a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the royal wedding of 1947. The magnificence of the occasion captured the nation's imagination and brought thousands on to the streets to cheer. Its Norman Hartnell dresses and 400 lb. wedding cake (extravagances frowned on in some quarters) offered a temporary escape from a ration-book economy and the worries of an unstable world. Using the unparalleled original material in The National Archives, Elizabeth and Philip charts the round-the-clock efforts of those, both high and low, who ensured the event's success. Fascinating nuggets and individual anecdotes abound from the official who proposed using fireworks (given all the 'surplus explosive chemicals' left over from the war!) to civil servants appalled at the poor-quality tourist tat, or the police who, politely but firmly, demanded their own beer tent to keep up morale on theday. There was royal protocol to consider too how would the Foreign Office deal with congratulations from Japan, with which Britain was still technically at war, or from Albania's former king, now persona non grata in his homeland? And would it be necessary to protect all that pageantry and glamour from that most British of problems, rain?

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Val Horsler has been involved for almost 30 years in history, heritage and archaeology publishing, most recently as Head of Publishing at English Heritage. Now a full-time writer and editor, her recent publications include Living the Past and This Spectred Isled: A Journey through Haunted England (co-authored with Susan Kelleher). She has two daughters and lives by the sea in Kent, England.