London

A RARE handwritten letter from a young Queen Elizabeth II telling the story of her romance with Prince Philip before their 1947 wedding has been sold at auction. The note, penned when she was a 21-year-old princess, recounts the early stages of their relationship from their rare meetings in wartime to the London dances they attended together. Queen Elizabeth, who celebrated her 90th birthday on Thursday, went on to have four children with Philip, 94. The couple are now great-grandparents.

The two-page letter, written to the author Betty Shew, was bought for £14,400 (S$28,214) by a private collector from Britain when it was sold at Chippenham Auction Rooms in south-west England on Saturday. The author was writing a book called Royal Wedding as a souvenir of the marriage, and the young princess agreed to share details of her relationship with her naval officer fiance, who was born a prince of Greece and Denmark.