Queen at 90: Thanksgiving service TODAY to celebrate Her Majesty’s birthday

THE Queen's life will be celebrated today with a national service of thanksgiving held to launch a weekend of events marking her 90th birthday.

Leading national figures including Sir David Attenborough and Clare Balding will gather at St Paul's Cathedral today to honour the Queen's milestone birthday with prayers, hymns and readings.

Among the congregation will be senior members of the Royal Family including the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

The thanksgiving service will be the start of a weekend of major events including Trooping the Colour and a huge street party, staged to honour the life of the monarch for her official birthday.

Politicians past and present, diplomats and governors-general will also be in the congregation including David Cameron who will read from the New Testament and the Archbishop of Canterbury will preach the sermon.

Naturalist Sir David Attenborough will read an address written by the Paddington Bear author Michael Bond, who is also 90, which will reflect on the passage of the last ten decades.

Judith Weir, the Master of the Queen’s Music, haas written an anthem which has been set to a poem by Robert Bridges, the Poet Laureate in the year the Queen was born, and music by Arnold Bax, who was the Queen’s first Master of Music.

Hilda Price, a 90-year-old widow who shares her birthday with the Queen, is one of six individuals given the honour of leading prayers, specially written to mark the Queen's 90 years, which will include a reference to the Duke's 95th birthday today.

Mrs Price, who lives in Cardiff, said it was "the shock of my life" when was told she had been picked to take part in the service.

The great-grandmother was born on the same day as the Queen and in the same year — April 21, 1926 — but the two women have lived very different lives.

Mrs Price was born in a house in Carmarthen, while the Queen was born in a town house in London's Mayfair, and grew up to become the wife of the Reverend Ken Price who served in a series of parishes in the Welsh valleys and surrounding areas.

Miss Balding, the broadcaster, will also be among those reading prayers, plus representatives of the Royal Household, the Law, the Armed Forces and the Commonwealth.

Other members of the Royal family due to attend the service are the Duke of York and his daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, the Earl and Countess of Wessex and their children Viscount Severn and Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor.

Also attending will be the Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

After the service the Queen, joined by the Duke, Charles and Camilla, will host a lunch for visiting governors-general at Buckingham Palace.

William, Kate and Harry, and other members of the Royal family will then attend a reception at the City of London's Guildhall for members of the congregation.

On Saturday, spectators will watch the traditional Trooping the Colour — also known as the Queen's Birthday Parade — with a street party on Sunday for 10,000 revellers being staged in The Mall.