TODAY is a day made for the history book, for HRH Queen Elizabeth becomes the longest reigning British monarch in our long history.

The Queen has been a constant in this country’s public life for the past 63 years.

She has lived through many personal highs and lows.

But she has also shared some of the country’s darkest moments.

The queen has witnessed immense changes in the country and has seen many a Prime Minister come and go.

She has done it all with a quiet dignity and it is perhaps for this, that despite the many and often heated debates about the relevance of the royal family in today’s society, the Queen seems to stand above it all.

She is still held in great affection by so many.

A quick look through our picture archive and the images drawn from the many visits she made to South Wales over the past six decades illustrates that all too clearly. Each time people turned out not in their hundreds, but in their thousands for the chance to catch a glimpse of their monarch.

We firmly believe that the debate about the role of the Monarchy in modern Britain will not really take hold until Queen Elizabeth passes on the reins to her son and heir Prince Charles.

Then and only then will the arguments really take hold.