Christmas Message mysteries #3: The 1960s footage that doesn't fit

 

The scene that is apparently from a Christmas Broadcast

 

In Andrew Marr's 2012 documentary Diamond Queen, there is (in episode three) a section covering the Christmas messages of Queen Elizabeth II.  During this segment can be seen a few brief seconds of black and white film which the casual viewer could be forgiven for assuming was from a long forgotten Christmas Broadcast.  Except that it isn't.

From the appearance of Her Majesty we can reasonably assume that the footage comes from the second half of the 1960s.  The problem with this is that all the Christmas Broadcasts from this period can be identified and the clip does not match any of them.  The mystery is further complicated by the fact that the footage is black and white, whereas the Queen's style is suggestive of the late 1960s (1967 or, more likely, 1968) by which time the Messages were recorded in colour.  There is no record of Elizabeth II having filmed separate colour and black-and-white Broadcasts.

Another problem we have is the location.  This is clearly not the Bow Room 'set' that was used from 1964 to 1968.  The BBC were known to have a replica set at Television Centre which was used for screen testing during this period, which raises the possibility that this might be film from such a dummy run.  However, the Queen's busy schedule did not allow for her to attend such events and it is known that the monarch's place was taken by BBC employee Binnie Marcus (who supposedly resembled Her Majesty) during the tests.

There is, of course, no doubt that this is Queen Elizabeth II apparently in the process of recording a televised address, or at least attending a rehearsal for one.  But where is Her Majesty, what year was this and what is the footage from?  Perhaps this is the most enduring Christmas Message mystery of all.

The 1968 Christmas Broadcast: the closest match to the mysterious footage

Christmas Message mysteries #2: The Vanishing Smile

Smiling broadly in 2006

From the 1970s onwards it became customary to release at least one publicity photograph of Queen Elizabeth II (sometimes several) to mark each year's Broadcast, rather than only for the most significant years, which had previously been the case.  Invariably in these images Her Majesty would be wearing her familiar smile and, in the years after 1990 when she wore spectacles to read her speeches, the Queen would often remove them for the posed photograph.

This practice continued for many years until suddenly, from 2007, Elizabeth II's expressions in the Broadcast's publicity pictures started to take on a more serious tone.  The reason for this is far from clear and cannot simply be attributed to changes of photographers who had differing approaches.  From the mid 1990s onwards the principle accredited photographers for the Christmas Broadcast were John Stillwell and Fiona Hanson (occasionally Steve Parsons stepped in), both of whom initially photographed the Queen smiling but in later years looking more sombre.

Looking more serious in 2007

Whatever the reason, anyone who studies the publicity photographs from before 2007 and compares them with those afterwards can observe that Elizabeth II smiles a lot less.  Occasionally, a secondary photograph was released showing Her Majesty smiling in an apparently unguarded moment, but not looking at the camera (see 2008, 2009 and 2017), but the posed, primary photographs generally depict the Queen with a more neutral expression.

 

The 2022 BBC documentary When the Queen Spoke To the Nation features behind the scenes footage  from the 2020 Christmas Broadcast.  In the clip, Victoria Jones (who photographed the Queen for her final two Messages) almost literally dives into the set to get her shots the second the cameras stop rolling.  There was certainly no 'say cheese!' moment.  Could it have been, therefore, that in an age of serious news stories where Queen Elizabeth was increasingly called upon to refer to natural disasters, terrorist atrocities, wars and economic difficulties, there was a conscious attempt to make the Queen look more as she did while she was delivering her speeches, rather than have smiling portraits that did not always fit the reporting?

Christmas Message mysteries #1: Her Majesty's Missing Specs

2016 Broadcast:  "Now you see them..."

 Queen Elizabeth II had been wearing spectacles for reading for several years when she delivered her Christmas message with the aid of glasses for the first time in 1991, suggestive of a weak corrective prescription for distance vision.  This began a run of twenty-six broadcasts featuring a bespectacled Queen.  For many of these, Her Majesty wore Silhouette 1899 eyeglasses, something of a  'trademark' in her later years.  However, between 2008 and 2016 (with the single exception of 2010), Elizabeth II chose to wear more stylish, rimless designer frames by the Danish brand Lindberg to read her annual speech.  The late Queen tended to reserve this pair, which she had begun to wear late in the first decade of the century, for special occasions such as the State Opening of Parliament and state banquets.

2017 Broadcast:  "...now you don't"

In 2017, something strange happened.  For the first time in more than a quarter of a century, Queen Elizabeth II delivered her festive address without her customary eyewear! As far as the Christmas Broadcast was concerned, Her Majesty would not call upon her trusty specs again for the remainder of her reign.

Surprisingly, the media did not appear to pick up on this intriguing piece of trivia.  It is, after all, not unusual for people to begin using glasses, but it is far less common to stop needing them!  One possible explanation is that Queen Elizabeth either underwent laser eye surgery or started to use contact lenses, neither of which would have been consistent with Her Majesty's known lack of vanity.  Another possibility is that teleprompters were, by 2017, able to be adapted for lens prescriptions, although a little ad hoc research suggests that this is not technologically possible.

 

Perhaps the reality was something that I have been told by more than one optician over the years.  Sometimes, as people become increasingly long-sighted and dependent on spectacles for close work, distance vision actually improves in later life, so it is plausible that the reason the late Queen stopped using her glasses for the Christmas Broadcast was simply because she no longer required them.  We will probably never know for sure.