On VE Day, not-yet Queen Elizabeth slipped out of Buckingham Palace and joined the festivities. Please enjoy this clip from a recent Channel 4 program about her evening on the town, in which women who came along reminisce about doing the conga through Piccadilly and down the streets of London then trooping into the Ritz and doing the conga there, too—Elizabeth included.
“I think we rather electrified the stuffy individuals inside, which was extremely enjoyable,” recalls one. “As one conga’d through, eyebrows were raised,” remembers another.
For those who missed the program, the Telegraph has a writeup of the adventure, including bits from a 1985 interview with Queen Elizabeth herself. She said:
“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. I also remember when someone exchanged hats with a Dutch sailor; the poor man coming along with us in order to get his hat back.”
Contact the author at kelly@jezebel.com.