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By RUKI SAYID
WITH her dowdy clothes and threadbare headscarf, she looks like a woman who has fallen on hard times.
On cold, winter nights she shuffles from door to door in a rundown area of South London, rattling her battered charity tin.
She pleads with anyone who will stop to listen: "Help the sick, help the sick."
The scarf may hide her greying curls but the alert blue eyes, cut- glass accent and forceful Teutonic chin are familiar.
This is none other than aristocrat Anne Abel-Smith, cousin of the Queen and great, great grand-daughter of Queen Victoria.
Her face is well-known in the backstreets of Brixton where she hands out pamphlets proclaiming "Jesus Saves" and collects loose change for her missionary work.
From her sensible shoes and old-fashioned handbag to her sturdy frame, her uncanny physical likeness to the Queen is remarkable.
Her devoted religious life is a far cry from her heyday when, as a sought- after debutante, she mingled with crowned heads of Europe at glittering royal galas.
King George VI and the Queen (now the Queen Mother) attended her coming- out ball where 500 VIPs were guests at London's Hyde Park Hotel.
HER privileged childhood and close blood ties with our Queen meant the two were playmates and visitors to each other's homes.
Speaking for the first time about the friendship between the two women, Anne's daughter-in-law Romana Liddell-Grainger reveals: "Even today, they still ring each other up and the Queen always makes a point of still inviting Anne to five-star functions such as Royal Ascot.
"Despite her religious zeal, that's one aspect of royal life Anne can't resist and all her Christian friends always help her prepare for these events.
"Anne attends many gospel meetings and a lot of her church friends are black. I have watched them work until midnight helping her make an outfit.
"Everything from her dress to matching hat and gloves is hand- stitched so she will not let the side down when she attends the Royal Enclosure.
"One day she is wearing old...