So, what is the secret to the 70-year marriage of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh? Is it never having to work a day in their lives, or never having to worry about money?

I’m sure those luxuries haven’t hurt the relationship, but those who know the couple best say it’s actually their SSOH.

Wait for it – shared sense of humour.

Jennie Bond covered the couple for 14 years, as former BBC royal correspondent, and she says their ability to have a good chuckle is what has kept the marriage alive.

Over to the Telegraph:

In private, the Queen is said to be a fine mimic, particularly skilled at pulling funny faces, and capable of reducing a whole dinner table to fits of laughter. In public, though, she is much more reserved. On occasion, the two sides of her have overlapped, usually when the Duke of Edinburgh is around…

The Duke even has a pet name for her. The rest of her close family may call her Lilibet, but he apparently refers to our sovereign as “Cabbage”.

…Over their 70 years together, there has been plenty of evidence of a private intimacy, even when in a crowd, that is created by knowing what the other is thinking – and finding it funny.

Let’s check in with a cute little anecdote:

When the Queen sat down to record her first-ever televised Christmas message in 1957, she was racked with nerves and froze in front of the cameras. The news was quickly conveyed to Prince Philip, who immediately sent a message back to the director. “Tell her to remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth”.

To everyone else in the room, his words meant nothing when read out to Her Majesty, but it made her smile. The ice was broken and the recording could go ahead.

The private reference was to what courtiers have described as the “screams of laughter” from the Queen when her husband would run up and down corridors brandishing a pair of false teeth to amuse her and their young children.

And back to the Queenie and her love of a joke:

She is said to have installed a speaker in one of the bathrooms in Buckingham Palace’s private quarters. When someone sat on the toilet, it played a recording of her voice saying: “Do you mind! I’m working down here.”

I guess the moral of the story is to pick someone you can have a good laugh with.

Oh, and it doesn’t hurt if they just happen to have a few hundred million pounds tucked away for a rainy day.

[source:telegraph]