The 1959 Broadcast

Elizabeth II addresses the people of Canada on Dominion Day, 1959

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  BBC

Theme:

With only weeks to go before giving birth to her third child, Elizabeth II records a short message conveying Christmas greetings to her listeners across the Commonwealth and thanking those who have sent good wishes following the news of her pregnancy.

Commentary:

At only around a minute's duration and a mere 127 words long, this is the shortest Christmas Broadcast of Elizabeth II's reign to date.  The 1959 message may well have been forgotten among the scores of annual broadcasts the Queen has made, yet it set an important precedent:  it was for the first time pre-recorded, and henceforth her Christmas broadcasts always would be.

 

As Christmas 1959 approached, Elizabeth II was heavily pregnant. The Queen saw the importance of the Christmas Day broadcast, which her father had made an annual ritual since the Second World War years.  However, the Queen was reluctant to undergo the strain of a live broadcast, and a live television broadcast in particular, only weeks away from giving birth (Prince Andrew, her third child,  would be born on 19th February,1960).  It was decided that a short speech would be recorded at Buckingham Palace on 17th December, allowing Elizabeth II and her family a stress-free Christmas at Sandringham.  As Ingrid Seward explains in The Queen's Speech (2015): 'Although it was not publicised how it was done, on a personal level it freed her from the anxieties that had marred her enjoyment of Christmas Day over the first eight years since her accession.'  The change made, Elizabeth II would never again broadcast live on Christmas Day.

The message is essentially an expression of good wishes, including the traditional Christmas sentiments of peace and goodwill.  It is interesting to note that in 1959 Elizabeth II felt it important to record a message, however brief; yet ten years later, in 1969, Her Majesty did not make a Christmas Broadcast at all.

Notes:

This was the second Royal Christmas Message to be recorded in advance.  In 1951, George VI had pre-recorded his speech in stages due to his declining health.  The King died on 6th February, 1952.

Elizabeth II did make a televised broadcast in 1959 - in July when she had addressed the Canadian people on Dominion Day (now Canada Day).

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The 1960 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  BBC

Theme:

Elizabeth II acknowledges a difficult year across the globe:   'Arguments and strained relations, as well as natural disasters, have all helped to produce an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty all over the world', Her Majesty says.  However, the Queen speaks positively about the special relationship between Commonwealth countries, specifically mentioning Nigeria, which had achieved independence in 1960 while remaining a Commonwealth member.  Elizabeth II also looks forward to the forthcoming visits she would make with the Duke of Edinburgh to several Commonwealth nations.

The Queen speaks of the importance of the contribution each individual can make in small ways to help improve the world and says she was 'delighted' by the number of messages and good wishes she received following the birth of her second son, Prince Andrew.

Commentary:

The precedent had been set with the brief, pre-recorded radio message the previous year.  After only two live television broadcasts from Sandringham - in 1957 and 1958 - from now on the annual Message would be pre-recorded.  The official explanation  seemed reasonable and was difficult to argue with:  tapes would be sent around the world in time for all Commonwealth countries to be able to broadcast at a convenient time on Christmas Day.  However, the real reason was that 1959 had proved more convenient for everyone - the BBC production team and the Queen and her family - who were able to enjoy Christmas Day at  home undisturbed.  

It had been a Palace decision and senior BBC managers were far from happy.  Peter Dimmock, then head of outside broadcasting at the BBC, many years later recalled his disappointment:  'Although I understood the reason for the change, I was disappointed it would no longer be transmitted live. For me, recording the message took so much away from it: the Queen speaking to everyone live on Christmas afternoon had a tremendous cachet. With a recording, you seemed to lose that.'  The loss of spontaneity was inevitable and the Queen's delivery is noticeably more leaden than in the first televised Broadcast just three years earlier.  Over the next few years, as ratings slipped and aware of Elizabeth II's anxieties about television, the BBC even informed the Palace that in the interests of spontaneity they would be happy to return to a sound only broadcast - provided it were live (Pimlott, The Queen, 1996).  However, the televised Broadcast - pre-recorded - would remain.

 

 

With pre-recording, the default home of the Christmas Broadcast had, at a stroke, moved from Sandringham to Buckingham Palace (it would remain there for twenty-two consecutive years).  The sumptuous White Drawing Room makes the first of many future appearances, but the grainy monochrome of 1960 hardly does it justice.  At the start of the production, shots of the rear of Buckingham Palace are shown as the booming voice of legendary BBC announcer John Snagge intones:  'This is London.  For this Christmas Day, 1960:  Her Majesty the Queen'.  Elizabeth II then appears seated beside a small table to the left of a roaring fire as the camera pans towards her, slowly zooming in as her speech progresses.  The Queen wears a formal/evening dress as she had done in the televised Sandringham Broadcasts (she would revert to 'daywear' by the middle of the decade).  One of Her Majesty's corgis, Sugar, sleeps at her side in the warmth of the fire.  The dog can be seen in the first few seconds of the Broadcast.

In future years, the advantages of pre-recording would allow many possibilities and opportunities, but this is a production filmed very much 'as live'.  It is all very basic:  no interspersed footage;  no Christmas tree (there would not be until 1987) and no Christmas cards (as seen in the two Sandringham productions).  Flower arrangements added a 'homely' look and would continue to be an integral part of the Christmas Broadcast 'set' as the years progressed.

Notes:

The Queen seems unusually gloomy as she reflects on a turbulent year for the world:  'By no stretch of the imagination can 1960 be described as a happy or successful year for mankind', she observes.  Such a pessimistic remark from Her Majesty would be considered surprising today.

The disasters to which The Queen alluded included an earthquake in Morocco which killed 12,000 people; the deaths of sixty-nine protesters in Sharpeville, South Africa; and an explosion in Six Bells Colliery in Monmouthshire in which forty-five miners died.

Elizabeth II refers to the birth of her second son, Prince Andrew, in February, but makes no mention of the marriage of her sister,  Princess Margaret, to society photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones in May.

The fact that all the countries of the Commonwealth were now able to see or hear the Queen on Christmas Day itself resulted in Elizabeth II's messages becoming much more Commonwealth orientated.  In 1957 the Queen referred to 'this country [the United Kingdom] and Commonwealth'.  From now on, Her Majesty would address the Commonwealth as a whole.

John Snagge (1904-1996) is perhaps best remembered for his BBC news bulletins during the Second World War, in particular breaking the news of the D-Day landings in June 1944.  Snagge also famously announced the birth of Prince Charles in 1948 and the death of King George VI in 1952.

 

A few days before Christmas, Peter Dimmock gave a polite but slightly mischievous interview to a journalist in a Sidney hotel, hastily conducted as he prepared to fly back to London after checking arrangements for the British Empire Games (now Commonwealth Games) scheduled to be held in Perth in 1962.  Dimmock told the reporter that the Message had been recorded in 'a back room at Buckingham Palace' (the White Drawing Room is actually the most grand of the state rooms!).  When asked whether the young Prince Charles and Princess Anne would be appearing in the Broadcast, Dimmock teased with an evasive answer, insisting that he was not allowed to talk about it.  Of course, Dimmock knew that the programme had been recorded a few days earlier and the Royal children had taken no part in it.

Trivia:

Elizabeth II would wear the True Lover's Knot Brooch, once owned by Queen Mary, again just two years later in the 1962 Broadcast.

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The 2018 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  Sky

Theme:

In a speech which was interpreted in various ways by the media, Elizabeth II talks of the importance of 'goodwill'.  Her Majesty speaks of the comfort she personally has found in 'faith, family and friendship', yet warns against 'tribalism':  'Even with the most deeply held differences, treating the other person with respect and as a fellow human being is always a good first step towards greater understanding.'  The Queen says that Christ's message of peace and goodwill is 'never out of date': 'It can be heeded by everyone; it's needed as much as ever.'

Elizabeth II also refers to the centenary of the Royal Air Force, her father's naval service during the First World War and, on a personal note, recalls a busy year for the Royal Family; with two weddings and two births (and another one expected) which she jokes ' helps to keep a grandmother well occupied.'

Commentary:

Parts of the media seemed very keen to portray the theme of the 2018 speech as a kind of end-of-term ticking-off from the headmistress. Who exactly was Her Majesty taking aim at with her calls for respect and goodwill? Was she addressing a Britain divided over Brexit, a few months before Article 50 was due to take effect?  Could she have been referring to the political landscape in the United States, polarised over the Donald Trump presidency?  Or perhaps it was a coded message to the supposedly feuding Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex?  All but the first of these can probably be swiftly discounted; but even if the Queen was making an oblique reference to Brexit divisions, seen everywhere in Britain from the House of Commons to the local supermarket, it was subtle enough to be well within the bounds of her constitutional neutrality and using terminology which is, after all, connected with the Christmas story.

In the second of Sky's back-to-back productions, Buckingham Palace is the location for the eighth consecutive time.  The centrality of the Palace is, however, downplayed to allow an emphasis on the choir of King's College, Cambridge, celebrating its centenary.  There is only one external shot - of the rear of the Palace seen immediately before the camera cuts to the Queen;  but, highly unusually for recent decades, there is no sign at all of the Royal Standard (which is usually seen in prominence at some point fluttering in the breeze) anywhere in the production.

The choice of room is the White Drawing Room, last used in 2012 but not showcased in its own right since 2009.  The White Drawing Room is arguably the grandest of Buckingham Palace's state rooms and is seen here in what looks pretty close to its usual arrangement.  A Christmas tree, flower arrangements and a photograph-covered desk for the Queen are the usual festive additions to achieve the requisite cosiness.  The Erard Piano, bought by Queen Victoria in 1856 and now part of the Royal Collection Trust, is seen in prominence during the production.

The choir of King's College Cambridge are in prominence at the beginning and end of the Broadcast.  The programme starts with some splendid photography from inside the chapel accompanied by a grand organ fanfare preceding the singing of God Save The Queen.  The choir return at the end for a rendition of the familiar carol Once In Royal David's City.  The Broadcast is also interspersed with footage from the RAF centenary fly-past earlier in the year, the weddings of Prince Harry and Princess Eugenie and the birth of Prince Louis.

Notes:

In recent years the photographs displayed on Elizabeth II's desk have formed an important part of the narrative of the speech.  In this year we see pictures of Prince Charles (who had celebrated his seventieth birthday the previous month) as a baby and more recently with his family; photographs from the weddings of the Queen's grandchildren Harry and Eugenie; her father Prince Albert (later King George VI) during his Navy service in the First World War and also of Prince William with his growing family.

The presence of the Erard Piano in the Broadcast was criticised by some anti-monarchists on Twitter who considered it 'tone deaf' that the Queen should be sitting alongside a 'gold piano' while talking about poverty.  Such people were seemingly unaware that the piano in question is a Royal Collection item in a Buckingham Palace state room and not Elizabeth II's personal property, or that the Queen never actually mentioned 'poverty' in her speech.

Once again, Elizabeth II's Christmas Message topped Christmas Day viewing figures in the UK with a combined audience of 6.3 million, although ratings dropped by more than one million compared with 2017 figures, with Netflix and streaming services being blamed for the general decline in television audiences.

Elizabeth II wears an ivory silk cocktail dress by Angela Kelly along with the Scarab brooch, which was a gift from Prince Philip in 1966.

The 2018 Message was recorded on 12th December.

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The 1961 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  BBC

Theme:

Elizabeth II references the Christmas story, linking the birth of Jesus with the importance of faith and what it can achieve.  Her Majesty also discusses her travels during the year, mentioning her visits to Commonwealth countries in Africa and Asia.  The Queen ends with a message of hope to the younger generation, encouraging them to use their energies positively: 'It is natural that the younger generation should lose patience with their elders, for their seeming failure to bring some order and security to the world. But things will not get any better if young people merely express themselves by indifference or by revulsion against what they regard as an out-of-date order of things.'

Commentary:

1961 marked the second pre-recorded Christmas broadcast and by this time many viewers would have cottoned on to the fact that Her Majesty was no longer speaking live.  The prospect of declining audiences loomed as a problem for producers, and although the Queen herself, in the prime of life, looks stunning in a splendid evening gown complete with enormous shoulder bow, everything else about this production seems wrong.

 

The state rooms of Buckingham Palace look magnificent when seen in person, but they simply did not transfer themselves well to the grainy television technology of the day.  Filmed in the 1844 Room, the 'effect' seems even more austere than the previous year.  Worse, the Queen is seated behind an enormous desk, inviting a visual cliché that would inspire many a satirical spoof down the years.  Elizabeth II was in danger of appearing the very detached, remote figure that she had been keen to avoid in her first televised Christmas message from Sandringham four years earlier;  the viewer had been transported from the live, cosy intimacy of Sandringham to a pre-canned speech from a huge room in Buckingham Palace.  The 1844 Room would not be seen again in a Christmas Broadcast until 2007, by which time viewers could enjoy the colourful grandeur of Buckingham Palace in high definition wide screen;  it would be returned to in 2011 and 2017.

As the decade of protest movements ground into gear, Elizabeth II's subtle warning to the younger generation is interesting.  1961 was a long way from 1968, but it is clear that the Monarch had detected a growing undercurrent of unrest.  The implication is that Elizabeth II is no hippie!

Notes:

The line ""Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing" that the Queen quotes is from the carol It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, written in 1849 by American poet Edmund Sears with accompanying tune by Richard Storrs Willis.

Trivia:

This is one of very few Broadcasts in which Elizabeth II does not wear a brooch.

 

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