Reuters, London :Britain’s Queen Elizabeth turns 90 on Thursday with beacons and gun salutes heralding the birthday of the world’s oldest monarch, who still performs hundreds of engagements a year and shows no signs of losing her appetite for the job.Usually her birthday passes with little ceremony but to mark Thursday’s landmark Elizabeth will greet well-wishers near her Windsor Castle home, west of London, and later light a beacon, the first of 1,000 to be lit across the country and worldwide to mark the occasion.There will also be artillery gun salutes in the British capital at Hyde Park and the Tower of London, while parliament will be illuminated red, white and blue.”It’s really sinking in now … just how much of a major milestone it is to have the queen celebrating her 90th, and after everything she’s achieved it’s quite a moment for the family,” her grandson and future king Prince William said in a Sky News interview broadcast on Wednesday.Close aides say Elizabeth, who has been on the throne for 64 years, was far more interested in events to mark her 90th birthday than she had been about overtaking her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria last September as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.In May, there will be a four-day pageant at Windsor Castle, while in June there will be further events to mark her official birthday, including the Patron’s Lunch, a street party for 10,000 guests on the Mall, the grand avenue leading to Buckingham Palace.
