The 1967 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  BBC

Theme:

In the year of the centenary of its Confederacy, Elizabeth II discusses Canada at length and praises its achievements, recalling her five-week tour with the Duke of Edinburgh earlier in the year.  The Queen also recalls her visit to another Commonwealth member, Malta;  a colony when she first stayed there in the early years of her marriage during the Duke of Edinburgh's naval career, but by this time self-governing.

The Queen went on to praise Sir Francis Chichester, who she had knighted in 1967 after he had become the first person to sail single-handedly around the world via the clipper route in his ketch Gipsy Moth IV, achieving the fastest circumnavigation.  Also, in a year of the Commonwealth Games, Her Majesty praises the athletes of the Commonwealth.

Commentary:

Only a lucky minority would have noticed the difference on Christmas Day 1967.  Britain had become the first European country to regularly provide colour programming earlier in the year (the BBC initially producing four hours per week), while the technology had not yet reached most parts of the Commonwealth.  Even in the UK, few people would have possessed a colour TV;  the vast majority of viewers would have had to make do with the usual black and white (even by March 1969, well over a year later, there were only 100,000 colour television sets in use in the United Kingdom).  Nevertheless, ten years on from the first live, monochrome televised Christmas message, the Broadcast began what would become a tradition of being at the forefront of improving technology.

Those of Elizabeth II's subjects who were fortunate enough to have colour television at Christmas 1967 were in for a dazzling experience. The Queen shimmered gloriously in a gold dress, while the sumptuous, gold-edged walls of the Bow Room were visible in colour for the first time.  Colour co-ordinating was now of vital importance and Elizabeth II blends in seamlessly with the pale blue drapes and pink sofas.  The basic Bow Room 'set' was actually much the same as it had been for the previous few years, but those who watched in colour could not have failed to notice the single most dramatic development in the history of the Christmas Broadcast.  Adding to the spectacular colour-'fest' was interspersed footage from the Westminster State Opening of Parliament; the first to be attended by Prince Charles and Princess Anne.

Perhaps not wishing to make the large majority of viewers feel left out, the Queen herself makes only a characteristically vague reference to the technological revolution taking place in a speech otherwise dominated, as so often, by Commonwealth matters: "Modern communications make it possible for me to talk to you in your homes and to wish you a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year. These techniques of radio and television are modern, but the Christmas message is timeless.  You may have heard it very often but in the end, no matter what scientific progress we make, the message will count for nothing unless we can achieve real peace and encourage genuine goodwill between individual people and the nations of the world."  It is, perhaps, one of Elizabeth II's skills as a natural diplomat that those who know what she is talking about know what she is talking about, while to everyone else her words make perfect sense in other ways!  As it happened, the Queen had first inspected experimental colour television at the BBC way back in 1953, so was fully aware that it was taking a long time to catch on.

Notes:

The preparations for this first colour Broadcast were painstakingly meticulous.  The BBC created a replica 'set' at Television Centre and former BBC secretary Mrs Binnie Marcus was chosen to stand in for the Queen because she had similar facial features and colouring, enabling technicians to experiment with different lighting and make-up to achieve the best results.


Trivia:

The knighting of Sir Francis Chichester was a flamboyant affair, stage-managed almost to the point of being a publicity stunt.  Instead of announcing Chichester's knighthood through one of the usual honours lists and inviting him to an investiture at Buckingham Palace or Windsor, the Queen was persuaded to travel to Greenwich, meeting Chichester upon his return to England after his solo circumnavigation and dubbing him on the spot, using the same sword Queen Elizabeth I had used to knight Sir Francis Drake!

Full text here