THIS coming Friday is VE Day and we might use the event to express thanks for our deliverance from the Nazis and to take our minds of whatever result the general election has thrown up.

A film based on the events of that night, A Royal Night Out, starring Emily Watson and Rupert Everett, is to be released next month.

It has only a passing acquaintance with the truth. But last week’s fascinating Channel Four documentary, The Queen’s Big Night Out described what really happened when, on the night of May 8, 1945, Princess Elizabeth (19) and her sister Princess Margaret (14) slipped out of Buckingham Palace and joined the ecstatic crowds.

Adventurous of them. I wasn’t surprised to hear about this exploit, because the Queen has always displayed a love of fun and games.

Sir Owen Morshead told of an incident at Windsor when Princess Elizabeth was only two. “The officer commanding the guard strode across to where her pram stood and said, ‘Permission to march off, please, Ma’am?’ There was the inclination of a bonneted head and a wave from a tiny paw.”

The Queen sharply deploys her ready wit, especially to defuse embarrassment. Once when she was in a tea- shop near Sandringham, a woman leaned forward and said: “Excuse me, but you do look awfully like the Queen.” The Queen replied: “How very reassuring!”

Again, at a banquet she was served with asparagus and her neighbour at the table, the trade union leader Hugh Scanlon, watched to see how she would deal with the thick, buttery, home-grown stems. When he came to be served, the Queen turned to him and said: “Good. Now it’s my turn to see you make a pig of yourself!” Then Mr Scanlon stabbed at a piece of meat and it flew off to the floor where it was snapped up by an eager corgi. The Queen said: “It’s not your day is it Mr Scanlon.”

On another occasion The Queen’s coach splashed mud over a pedestrian in Windsor. The pedestrian, a woman, shouted something and the Queen answered her: “I quite agree.” The Duke of Edinburgh turned to the Queen and asked: “What did she say, dear?” The Queen replied: “Bastards!”

Much later at a public ceremony Mrs Thatcher felt embarrassed because she’d turned up in an outfit which resembled the Queen’s. Afterwards, Downing Street discreetly asked the palace whether, to avoid a clash, there was any way by which in future the Prime Minister might know in advance what her Majesty intended to wear. The palace phoned back with a message directly from the Queen: “Don’t worry. The Queen doesn’t notice what other people are wearing.”

Some say that in the modern world the Queen is only an ornament and she does not really rule. They are mistaken. The Queen rules through her ministers, just as the ministers govern through their civil servants. Of course the minister does not attend to every small item of business. It is his job to secure the coherence of his department. It is the Queen’s function to secure the coherence of the realm. TS Eliot wrote in 1939: “You cannot expect continuity and coherence in politics, you cannot expect reliable behaviour on fixed principles persisting through changed situations, unless there is an underlying political philosophy not of a party, but of the nation.” Something to remember after all the recent noisy electioneering.

This year the Queen will become our longest-serving monarch. She has served the nation with distinction. I hope she enjoys many another big night out.