1969 - No Broadcast

Elizabeth II's written Christmas message, 1969

Ironically, 1969 is one of the most famous years in the history of the Christmas Broadcast, for the simple fact that there wasn't one.  Few potted histories of the annual Message seem to get by without an honourable mention of this year.  It was the first time in more than thirty years that there had been no Royal Christmas Message aired on Christmas Day, and remains, to date, the only year of her reign in which Elizabeth II has not broadcast.

The Buckingham Palace postmen, already trying to cope with the extra the seasonal mail, must have been positively groaning under the strain of the extra sack loads from concerned subjects wondering what had gone wrong.  Then, a few days before Christmas, the redoubtable Mrs Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, best remembered for her tireless efforts to purge our television screens of what actually was on rather than what wasn't, turned up at the gates of Buckingham Palace with a 20,000-strong petition comprising letters from members of the public 'regretting' the Queen's decision not to broadcast on Christmas Day.

Mary Whitehouse and friends with a very British protest;  December ,1969

The official reason for the absence of a Broadcast of any form in 1969 is that, given the presence of the Royal Family documentary that year (which was being repeated on Christmas Day), offering an intimate portrait of the Windsors at work and at play; and also the televised investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of  Wales, the Queen felt that the public had seen enough of her on television for one year.  Her Majesty had probably seen enough of film crews for one year, too.  It has also been put forward that the Broadcast may have been shelved as a sign of the Queen's displeasure at interference in the content of the previous year's speech from prime minister Harold Wilson.  Also, given concern about declining audience figures during the 1960s, it is also possible that the break was a way of "testing the water" as to whether people still wanted the annual Broadcast.

Elizabeth II and her children, Christmas 1968. From the documentary 'Royal Family'

 The Palace were clearly taken aback by the scale of the public response, so much so that at the beginning of her short written message, released from Windsor Castle on Christmas Day, Elizabeth II acknowledges the many messages she had received on the matter and offers a reassuring hint that the break is temporary, while assuring her subjects that 'my good wishes are no less warm and personal because they come to you in a different form.'

Notes:

The Royal Family documentary of 1969 is subject to a certain amount of collective cognitive dissonance from commentators.  It is regarded as both hugely successful and a mistake.  On the one hand, there was a significant popularity bounce for the monarchy and a massive amount of interest in the British royal family, who were portrayed as an ordinary, happy family.  However, therein lay the problem - the Windsors perhaps came across as too ordinary, thus risking the magic and mystique that monarchy depends upon as well as opening the family up to a scrutiny which it had hitherto unknown.  As a result, the programme has never been shown again in its entirety and remains locked away in a BBC vault on the Queen's instructions.   Nevertheless, the family must have enjoyed a rapport with the documentary's producer, Richard Cawston.  The following year Cawston was asked to take charge of the Christmas Broadcast, and continued as producer until his death in 1986.