The 1979 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  BBC

Theme:   

 

In the International Year of the Child,  Elizabeth II speaks about the plight of children in the world, especially those in South East Asia where she highlights the work of her daughter Princess Anne as President of the Save the Children Fund as well as the volunteers who were helping children caught up in the conflict in Cambodia.  Her Majesty also stresses the importance and responsibility every generation faces of raising children in all walks of life:  'Children are born with a mixed package of emotions, talents and handicaps, but without knowledge or experience. As they grow up they have to learn to live with their parents and families; and they have to adjust to school, including the discovery of leisure activities and learning to handle their relationships with their contemporaries and with strangers.'

Commentary:   

 

Dressed in a warm, 'mustardy' gold, Queen Elizabeth II speaks from the sofa in a softly lit Regency Room.  At the end of the 1970s the Broadcast had moved away from the stereotype of a remote figure speaking from behind an enormous desk and the more 'homely' feel to the production was by now well established.  The Queen's camera style is also notably more relaxed and confident, perhaps a result of the reflective glow of the Silver Jubilee celebrations two years earlier, which had strengthened the bond between Monarch and subjects.

 

As God Save the Queen is played at the start of the programme, we see aerial footage of Buckingham Palace as the camera pans round the Palace, gardens and the Mall.  Such impressive scenes were increasingly routine as television production standards developed.  Also becoming more familiar by the end of the 1970s was the use of interspersed footage, sometimes specially shot, in the Broadcasts.  During this production we see an unprecedented amount of exclusive material:  the Queen talking to Commonwealth leaders at the Heads of Government meeting in Africa;  Prince Philip and Prince Andrew on the Africa trip discussing with children from the Commonwealth where they come from and their ambitions;  the Queen talking to schoolchildren in London about what the Commonwealth means to them; Princess Anne visiting refugee children in the Far East in her capacity of President of the Save The Children Fund;  the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh arriving at a huge children's party in Hyde Park attended by 80,000 youngsters and finally more scenes of the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Andrew being welcomed and entertained by schoolchildren while in Africa. At the end of the Broadcast, aerial footage of Buckingham Palace is again played, with an echoed reprise in the background of the sound of the schoolchildren in Africa singing 'Sing Hosanna to the King of Kings'.

At a little over seventeen minutes in length, this is probably the longest of all Elizabeth II's Christmas Broadcasts.  The reason for this is almost entirely due to the large amount of interspersed footage of the Queen and members of her family, often seen in conversation with people in Britain and the Commonwealth (the bulk of which being filmed on their African tour).  These extended scenes account for more than half the programme.  Untypically long Christmas Broadcasts would almost always be due to a particular focus on the Commonwealth and foreign tours undertaken by the Queen, as could be seen again in years such as 1983 and 1999.

 

Notes:

In another technical milestone, this was the first Christmas Broadcast to include subtitles for the hard of hearing through the BBC's Ceefax teletext service.

1979 had seen tragedy for the royal family as Lord Louis Mountbatten, uncle of Prince Philip, had been murdered by the IRA on his boat while on holiday in Ireland in August.  Other members of Mountbatten's family had been killed and seriously injured in the bomb attack.  The royal family had been deeply affected by the event but the Queen, ever sensitive to political situations, made no mention of it in her speech.

The clichéd popular view of the Queen delivering her annual address from behind a large desk has, historically, actually been the exception rather than the rule.  If anything, the 'default' look is of Elizabeth II sitting alongside a small table, first seen in the very first televised Christmas message in 1957 and many times since.  Nevertheless, the image of the desk-bound monarch has persisted.  Ronnie Barker satirised the format (and even the Queen's speaking style) in the 1984 The Two Ronnies Christmas special, with his 'HM Quinn' Milkman's Speech.  In more recent years, the enduring stereotype has been parodied by, amongst others, the BBC's Dead Ringers comedy show and even the PG Tips 'Monkey'!

Elizabeth II would return to the theme of the work of Princess Anne and the Save the Children Fund ten years later in the 1989 broadcast. 

 

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