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| Sandringham House, Norfolk |
On Christmas Day 1932, a country estate on the north Norfolk coast of England became the centre of the British Empire. After almost a decade of politely declining all overtures from the BBC and prime ministers, King George V had finally been persuaded to address his peoples across the Empire by means of a short radio message. The old King was deeply nervous, so much so that he spoke from a small box room in Sandringham House, with a thick cloth on the microphone table to try to disguise the sound of his script in his trembling hands. Nevertheless, George V with his rich, gravelly tones was a broadcasting natural and the message was an instant success. Penned by the great writer Rudyard Kipling, the speech called for unity within the Empire and stressed the King's dedication to his people. For most of his listeners, this was the first time they had heard the voice of their king and they loved it.
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| King George V broadcasting from Sandringham on Christmas Day |
So widely acclaimed was the speech that, despite George V's hope and expectation that it would be a one-off, British prime minister Ramsay Macdonald, seeing the potential of the unifying nature of the Message, persuaded the King to repeat the exercise. Dutifully but reluctantly, King George would broadcast every year for the remainder of his reign, despite complaining that it 'ruined' his Christmas Day.
King George V gave his final broadcast on Christmas Day 1935, less than a month before his death. Sounding weaker, the King thanked his subjects for their loyalty and love during what had been his Silver Jubilee year. There was no Christmas broadcast in 1936 as King Edward VIII had abdicated only a few weeks earlier.
On Christmas Day 1937, King George VI gave a radio broadcast to thank people for their support a year after unexpectedly succeeding his brother to the throne. George VI's battles with the microphone are well known, in large part due to the 2010 film The King' Speech. The King's stammer, which he had suffered from since childhood, made him view the prospect of appearing as a disembodied voice before millions of listeners with horror. Thankfully, with the help of the unorthodox and eccentric speech therapist Lionel Logue, George VI was, in time, able to overcome his speech impediment.
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| King George VI at the microphone during World War Two |
George VI had intended his 1937 speech to be a one-off and there was no Broadcast the following year, but in September 1939 Britain declared war on Germany and it was decided that the King's Christmas Message with all its happy associations with George V, would be an important wartime morale booster both on the home front and to those serving overseas. In his speech that year, George VI quoted part of the Minnie Louise Haskins poem God Knows, which thereafter became famous.
King George VI would broadcast every Christmas Day throughout the war, using his messages to praise the Armed Forces, encourage those on the 'home front' and speak of the quest for peace. By the end of the Second World War in 1945, the annual message had become a fully-established tradition and the King would continue to speak annually from Sandringham about the post-war challenges for Britain and the emerging Commonwealth.
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| The Long library at Sandringham |
By the late 1940s the King's health began to fail, due in part to a lifetime of heavy smoking as well as the strain of the war. In September 1951, George VI had a cancerous lung removed and his Christmas message of that year was the first to be pre-recorded; done in stages to allow the King to rest in between. Sounding hoarse and weakened, King George praised his doctors, thanked the public for their support and looked ahead to a recovery from his illness. Sadly, the recovery would never come; just six weeks later, on the morning of 6th February 1952, the King was found dead in his bed by his valet. He was only fifty-six years old.
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| Elizabeth II's first Christmas Broadcast, 1952 |
In 1957, Elizabeth II was at last persuaded to broadcast on television for the first time. Although nervous and far from a natural television performer, the Queen understood the importance of this relatively new medium. Speaking from the familiar surroundings of the Long Library, she said “Twenty-five years ago my grandfather broadcast the first of these Christmas messages. Today is another landmark because television has made it possible for many of you to see me in your homes on Christmas Day….. I very much hope that this new medium will make my Christmas message more personal and direct.”
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| First televised Message, 1957 |
The Duke of Edinburgh had stood behind the camera to try to help his wife relax. As she finished speaking, the Queen caught sight of her husband pulling faces and broke into a radiant smile just before the camera faded to black.
From now on, television was the future of the Christmas Broadcast. In 1960 it was pre-recorded for the first time, which meant that copies of the speech could be shipped, under strictly embargoed conditions, to all parts of the Commonwealth beforehand and broadcast at the most appropriate time. It was also far more convenient for the Queen and all involved in the production, who no longer suffered a Christmas Day filled with disruption. Pre-recording also meant that the 'default' location of the Broadcast moved from Sandringham to Buckingham Palace.
In 1967 came the most dramatic visual change as the Broadcast was filmed in colour for the first time. In 1969 for the first and (to date) only time in Elizabeth II's reign there was no Broadcast because, with the fly-on-the-wall Royal Family documentary and the televised investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales, the Queen felt that she had done enough television for one year.
In 1970 the Broadcast returned with Royal Family producer Richard Cawston at the helm. During his fifteen years in charge, Cawston would transform the programme into a more polished television production rather than simply a televised broadcast. During this period the production would be interspersed with specially-shot footage; memorable moments included the Queen looking at a photograph album with her two younger children princes Andrew and Edward in 1971 and film from the Christening of Prince Harry in 1984. The Regency Room of Buckingham Palace would become the familiar 'default' base of the Broadcast as it sailed through television's 'golden age', achieving a record audience of 28 million in 1980.
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| Elizabeth II with producer David Attenborough, 1986 |
In 1992, new producer Philip Gilbert persuaded the Queen (in what she had famously described as her 'annus horribilis') to bring the Broadcast back to its 'spiritual home' of Sandringham, for the first time in more than thirty years. The Sandringham cycle lasted for the next five years and, given that it is the place where the Queen and her family spend Christmas every year, these productions have a special and personal feel about them, even though with the marital problems of Elizabeth II's children dominating the headlines week after week, they came at the darkest time of her reign.
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| Recording at Sandringham, 1994 |
The first ITN production came from the White Drawing Room of Windsor Castle in 1997. Only months after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Queen paid tribute to her late former daughter-in-law and also praised the restoration work at Windsor Castle, which had been completed following the fire of 1992, as well as commenting on her recent Golden Wedding celebrations. The production, which was also the first to be broadcast on the Internet, was
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| 1998 Broadcast |
Further developments and innovations came as the Broadcast moved into the Millennium. In 1999, a week before the dawn of the new century, the BBC experimented with a 'video diaries' type format for the Message, while ITN took production on location to Combermere Barracks in Windsor (2003) and Southwark Cathedral (2006). In 2007 the Message was published on YouTube for the first time, as the Queen reflected on the technical changes since her first televised Christmas broadcast fifty years earlier.
In 2011, Sky News was brought into the two-year rota with the BBC and ITN and oversaw the visually spectacular broadcast of Christmas 2012, which was Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee year. This was also the first of her messages to be recorded in 3D.
Elizabeth II's Christmas messages have only rarely been considered controversial. In the late 1960s and early 1970s successive British prime ministers Harold Wilson and Edward Heath resisted the Queen's plans to refer to the economic difficulties being faced by some of her subjects, while some British politicians considered her 'rich and poor nations' theme of 1983 to be too political; promoting the Commonwealth at the expense of the United Kingdom. Other controversies have included the unauthorised leaking of the text of her speeches of 1987 and 1992 prior to broadcast.
Elizabeth II never discusses party politics in her Broadcasts and has only ever mentioned one of her many British prime ministers by name - Winston Churchill in 1999, almost thirty-five years after his death. Like her father and grandfather before her, the Queen strives to strike a positive, unifying tone stressing family, faith and community with a particular focus on the Commonwealth (a subject which has always been dear to her heart) and, at times of conflict, the Armed Forces. She often refers to jubilees, major anniversaries, royal births, deaths and marriages but Elizabeth II does nor reference herself or her family nearly so much as some people may suppose; instead the Queen sees her annual speech as an opportunity to pay tribute to 'unsung heroes'. In recent decades the Queen has spoken far more openly about her own deep Christian faith as her messages have become noticeably more religious. It would perhaps not be unreasonable to suggest that the pitch Elizabeth II aims for in her annual broadcast is to heed the message of the Angels to the shepherds at Bethlehem: “
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| Elizabeth II recording in her Diamond Jubilee year of 2012 |
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