Astonishing photographs of the Queen on holiday as a teenager have come to light for the first time 74 years after they were taken.
The images, captured on the eve of the Second World War, show Princess Elizabeth and her family relaxing on board a cruise ship and meeting with foreign dignitaries.
They were taken by a musician working on board the boat, named The Empress of Britain, and discovered this year by his descendants, who previously had no idea of his brush with royalty.
Candid: This never-before-seen photograph shows the Queen, second left, aged 13 with her sister Margaret and her parents George VI and Queen Elizabeth
Holiday: The Royal Family is shown on board The Empress of Britain in 1939, before the outbreak of the Second World War
The informal snaps show Elizabeth, then aged 13, with her father George VI, her mother Queen Elizabeth and her sister Margaret.
One catches the young princess as she grabs hold of her hat to stop it blowing away in the strong wind.
Others show the King and Queen boarding the cruise ship and inspecting her crew.
Saxophonist Leslie Willoughby took the photographs after approaching the Royal Family and asking if they would mind posing.
Arrival: The King and Queen pictured as they boarded the cruise ship surrounded by a large crowd of well-wishers
Line-up: The Royal couple inspecting the ship's crew as they boarded the vessel for their holiday with their daughters
When his widow Eve died in 1993, eight years after him, the images were handed down to his niece Shirley Fleming, now 79, and her husband Ray, 76.
But the couple only discovered the photographs early this year when they were clearing out a cupboard at their home in Wotton, Norfolk.
They now plan to pass on the pictures to Her Majesty, saying that she deserves to own the mementoes of her own youth.
'It's really lovely to look back and see what he did and who he saw,' Mr Fleming said.
Casual: The images were captured by saxophonist Leslie Willoughby with the permission of the Royal Family
Tranquil: The King and Queen talking to Mackenzie King, prime minister of Canada, in another photograph from 1939 unearthed in Mr Willoughby's archive
'We are pensioners we have got enough to live on for the rest of our life. We just think that these should be shared.
'We want the Queen to see them. She is the head of our whole country and she deserves to see them.
'There are not many informal pictures of the Queen worldwide so these are pretty rare.
'It would be our dearest wish for her to be able to see them and to take them off our hands. She is the is the only person we would ever give the pictures up to.'
Ship: The Empress of Britain pictured in 1939, a year before it was sunk by a German aircraft
Musician: Leslie Willoughby, pictured and on the right was a saxophonist on board the cruise ship
He added: 'Leslie never mentioned anything about meeting with the Queen to anybody.
'We never knew he had even been on the cruise liners until we had seen all the letters. He was a very quiet man and kept himself to himself.'
The Empress of Britain cruise liner was built between 1928 and 1931 by the John Brown shipyard in Scotland.
It was sunk in October 1940 off the west coast of Ireland by a German long range Focke-Wulf Condor aircraft. It is thought 49 people were killed.
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