Location: Buckingham Palace
Produced by: BBC
Theme: In what is sometimes described as a 'sombre' speech, the Queen refers to 'troubled times', and deals with the issues of the economic downturn, servicemen and women risking their lives in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ninetieth anniversary of the end of the First World War. Her Majesty also pays tribute to the work of her son, the Prince of Wales, who had celebrated his sixtieth birthday the previous month. The Queen ends by recalling the example of Jesus in helping those in need.
Commentary: Surprisingly, this was the first time that the Music Room of Buckingham Palace was used as the setting for a Christmas broadcast, and it was chosen by the Queen (as she mentions in the address) to mark the Christening of Prince Charles there sixty years earlier. The large and elegant interior of the Music Room is an ideal venue for the widescreen and digital television age, and the effect is visually impressive.
The Broadcast contains footage of the Queen and other members of her family, including Prince Andrew, Prince Harry and the Countess Of Wessex at work during the royal year. Prince Charles is, unsurprisingly, particularly well-showcased.
At the end of the Broadcast, never before-seen private footage of the then 23 year old Princess Elizabeth with the infant prince Charles is played to the accompaniment of a choir of children singing O Little Town Of Bethlehem.
It was perhaps unfair of some sections of the media to describe the speech as 'sombre'. It is true that the Queen often deals with serious issues and invariably uses her annual message to remember those who suffer, those in need and those who risk their lives in the line of duty. However, Elizabeth II almost always puts national difficulties within the positive context of the Christmas message and ends on an uplifting note.
Notes: In the 1960s and 70s Elizabeth II had met with resistance from British prime ministers Harold Wilson and Edward Heath when she had attempted in her Christmas broadcast to refer to economic difficulties in the United Kingdom. In 2008, however, incumbent prime minister Gordon Brown appears to have approved the Queen's words, perhaps because Her Majesty stresses the global nature of the financial crisis rather than speak of a specifically British problem.
Also shown in the Broadcast is poignant footage of the last three known British survivors of World War I, Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone, at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday the previous November. All three had died by the following Remembrance Sunday.
Trivia: Sharp-eyed viewers may have noticed that the Queen is wearing a more stylish-looking pair of rimless spectacles rather than her familiar plastic-framed glasses.
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