Marking seventy extraordinary years on the throne | Wheeler's Wisdom

Elizabeth's real birthday is April 21, and this year she turned 96.

Despite her age, she still manages a hectic schedule.

She only missed one day of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations that brought great joy to the British, and thrilled foreign tourists.

However, perennial whinger, ABC/SBS darling Yassmin Abdel-Magied, was in Britain. "There are union jacks everywhere - it's like a waking nightmare," Yassmin tweeted.

Gosh, Yassmin. Of course, there were Union Jacks everywhere. The British know how to do spectacular celebrations.

The Daily Mail's British website has had royal stories covering half the website, and not just gossip about the two royals who ditched Britain to live in Netflixland.

It's been positive stuff, reminiscing about The Queen's 70 years on the throne.

I can remember the day King George VI died.

I was at my Grandmother's house. I walked into the kitchen, and the radio was playing this very sad dirge. I changed stations, but one by one, each station started playing that same slow orchestral tune. I was only a kid, and I wondered what was going on.

You had to be from my Grandmother's generation to understand the genuine affection that Australians had for the King, who had been such a symbol of strength during the war.

My Grandmother was in tears. She sent me outside.

But for us at school, it was joy!

Elizabeth, that dashing young lady, suddenly and tragically, had been thrust into the role of Queen.

Liverpool school kids celebrated the coronation with a parade to the showground waving Union Jacks and Australian flags, dressed in red, white and blue.

I was towing my decorated billy-cart, which I had to pull around the loose-dirt trotting track during the Grand Parade, but at least the flag-waving crowds were cheering. Australians knew how to do national celebrations back then.

We were thrilled to hear that Elizabeth was going to come to Australia.

For me, it was just the most exciting day out, but it was more about the trip.

Our whole school was bundled onto an electric train.

We jostled the crowds at Central as we boarded lines of trams taking us to the Sydney Showground. The excitement was too much. I had used 11 of the 12 shots on my film camera by the time the Queen was driven past, standing in a Land Rover.

So when my pictures came back from the chemist, my mother was quite annoyed - pictures of friends on the train, the train itself, the trams of course, but only one picture of the Queen. Young Elizabeth looked very small from my fairly high grandstand seat.

Wagga knew how to do Royal Tours. An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets when The Queen visited Wagga in 1954. A special Sunday edition of The Daily Advertiser described it as "Wagga's Greatest Day".

Since that time, the world has changed dramatically, but the Queen has remained as a symbol not only of Britain, but as a figure respected throughout the world.

Without a doubt, the Royal Family is the backbone of Britain's tourist industry. Castles, ceremonies, and personal appearances at events, bring in the visitors.

I visited Buckingham Palace in 2007. The size of the Sunday afternoon crowd outside the gates amazed me.

I was surprised to see so many tourists from non-British countries.

I asked a family of middle-east appearance what the Queen meant to them. "She's The Queen," was the simple answer.

And that's the simple answer in Australia too. The Queen is our connection with Australia's British heritage, which has given us stable systems of government, law and order, and the peaceful society that makes multicultural Australia the envy of the world today.

The Queen's position in our constitution is a symbolic one, something that has saved us from the presidential bitterness of places like America.

Those who talk about a republic are trying to introduce another layer of political controversy into Australia, another round of voting stress that we don't need.

The Queen has served us well for 70 years.

Long may she reign.