Hats off to stylist who 'crowned' a Queen

But the pensioner, who celebrates her 105th birthday today at her Boroughbridge care home, counted the cream of the British nobility among her clientele throughout the 1920s and beyond.

Perhaps the most famous customer at the exclusive Madame Henri Salon in Mayfair where she worked was the late Queen Mother, before her husband ascended the throne as George VI .

"The Salon was in Dover Street opposite the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly," remembers Mrs Warboys. "We made quite a few hats for her and she used to come in quite often.

"She was the Duchess of York then. She would not become Queen for quite a few years."

The daughter of a London tramways inspector, Mrs Warboys's creative flair began to shine from an early age and the walls of her room at Boroughbridge Manor residential home are hung with her own works, including a self portrait from 1945.

"I had to make things," she said. "I loved to draw too and I always painted; it just came naturally.

"I used to make dresses and hats for all my dolls when I was a little girl.

She soon progressed to designing and making clothes for her mother and two older sisters, Violet and Lillian, until, at the age of 14, she went to work for the Admiralty in Whitehall.

But she did not enjoy clerical work and when a friend told her about an apprenticeship at Madame Henri's salon she jumped at the chance.

"The Admiralty wasn't for me," she explained. "I wanted to make things. My mother and my father had to pay 25 to get me an apprenticeship. I had to do four years apprenticeship and the first year I made around two shillings and six."

She learned quickly and her ability to draw set her apart from the other girls, which meant she would frequently be called into the fitting rooms to consult with clients.

"There were three work rooms with about 30 girls in total. There were a lot of others who were very good at sewing and making things but they weren't so good at designing things.

"When a customer came in one of the sales ladies would see her and then blow up (call] to the work room and ask to send me down because they knew I could do sketches."

She recalls her first meeting with the then Duchess of York: "I didn't know who would be in the room when I went down so it was a bit of a shock.

"But she was very nice. The first thing we did was to measure her head, I remember she had quite a small head."

Her encounter with the future Queen was the first of many and over the years Mrs Warboys made a wide variety hats for her Royal client to wear at all manner of official engagements.

"When she came she would tell me roughly what she wanted and would ask me if I had any ideas or suggestions to make and I would do a little sketch.

"She said she wanted hats that she could go any place. She often asked have her hats made so that they were off the face because she said that people wanted to see her face.

"She would say 'when I go somewhere people come to see me, they do not just want to see a hat they want to see a face.

"She was very, very nice and really easy to design for."

Mrs Warboys remembers the Queen Mother, who lived to the age of 101, as a fun-loving person who doted on her two daughters, the present Queen and her sister, the late Princess Margaret.

"She used to bring her two girls to the Royal photographer's which was across the street," she added. "The girls would come to the window and wave to us. They were very young then."

Mrs Warboys left the salon when she married because, she says, "women were expected to give up work when they married in those days".

She moved with her husband Cecil, who had been a civil servant working in the Lord Chancellor's office, to Worthing and they had a son, John.

During the Second World War she was a nurse and tended many of the wounded from the Normandy landings in 1944.

"After D-Day we were a front-line hospital," she explained. The troops would come in straight from the front line still covered in mud. We had to clean them up and do superficial treatment to their wounds before sending them on to other hospitals

"There were a great many it was very sad and very tiring. It was very upsetting work but you had to do it."

The family moved to Yorkshire in the 1950s when their son John was posted to RAF Leeming for his National Service.

John died in 2000, leaving Ellen, who has gradually lost her eyesight, the sole surviving member of her family.

ROYALS' OVERSEAS GIFTS REVEALED

Two matching BlackBerry handsets, a chocolate fondue kit and a leg of prosciutto were just some of the gifts given to the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall on their overseas tours last year, it was revealed yesterday

Charles and Camilla also received papal rosaries from Pope Benedict XVI after paying their respects at the Vatican.

Clarence House published the list of presents received by the heir to the throne and his wife on their 2009 foreign travels on its website.

The couple visited Chile, Brazil and Ecuador in March, Italy and Germany in April and Canada in November.

They received their matching BlackBerry Storm 9500s – all-in-one 3G smartphones –from the Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty. Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of the BlackBerry, was founded in the Canadian province.