Queen and Prince Philip head to Malta

The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are flying to Malta today to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary on the Mediterranean island where they lived as young newlyweds.

The trip, en route to a Commonwealth summit in Uganda, was Prince Philip’s idea to recall happy memories on the anniversary itself after Monday’s formal thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey.

The Queen and Prince Philip leave Westminster Abbey yesterday

The couple are due to fly into Valletta, the capital of the tiny island nation, at around 5pm. It will be a nostalgic return: they spent several periods in Malta between 1949 and 1951, when Philip was serving in HMS Chequers with the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet.

They often danced the night away in the sumptuous ballroom of the Hotel Meridien Phoenicia in Valletta.

Memories of those times are precious because it was their only experience of life approaching something like an ordinary couple.

They lived in the grandly-named Villa Guardamangia which was owned by Lord Mountbatten who engineered their first meeting between the couple when the Queen was just 13.

During her time on Malta the Princess Elizabeth had perhaps her only brush with road rage.

The Royal couple were surrounded by their close family

Driving to the shops in her MG, she found a narrow village lane blocked by a man on a donkey cart coming the other way.

Both stood their ground, until the man told the future monarch that he and his donkey were never going to budge. She was forced to back up.

Prince Philip had his first sign of life ahead when, irritated after posing briefly with his wife for a picture, he snapped at the photographer: “Haven’t you had enough?”

His wife, according to popular legend, told him: “Philip, they’re only doing their job. Now you’ve married me, you’ll have to lump it.”

The royal couple will greet well-wishers including others who married in the same year during a walkabout at the Upper Barrakka Gardens before enjoying a private dinner.