Never-before-seen footage of Queen Elizabeth II in Malta has been used in an ITV documentary on the British Monarch’s 90th birthday. The Queen turned 90 on Thursday.
The footage, showing a relaxed Princess Elizabeth with then Archbishop Michael Gonzi, was captured by the Baron Jerome De Piro d’Amico Inguanez, father of the Marquis Nicholas de Piro of Casa Rocca Piccola.
The Baron de Piro was an amateur cameraman who filmed the princess during her time in Malta as a newlywed.
In a short clip uploaded on Facebook, the Marquis says his father, who had just bought a new camera from Switzerland, was invited for coffee after lunch one day. “The Archbishop said come and take some photographs with your new camera.”
“She was very good, she didn’t protest. She gave us her profile and pointed out to say how nice the view was. I think he was very lucky because a few years further on he would never have been allowed. So there’s a certain element of the unique in those short shots but they were special. They were actually the Queen being totally natural.”
“She was beautiful and everyone really thought so. She was really personally popular. Not just as princess, everybody liked her. She had an absolutely incredible time in Malta.”
The documentary ‘Our Queen at 90’ was broadcast on ITV on Sunday 27 March.