Last December a reader posted a comment asking if I knew whether Queen Elizabeth's broadcasts from the 1960s and 70s could be found online. The truth is that I only have access to what can be found by anyone else who does regular Internet searches.
Regarding general availability, all of Elizabeth II's Christmas messages from 1984 onwards can be found in full on YouTube, but the quality of the copies is often variable.
The missing years where no archive material is apparently available are 1964 and 1978 (except for footage of Elizabeth II with her daughter Princess Anne and first grandchild Peter Phillips, which was used in the broadcast). Also, no copies can be found online of radio only broadcasts from 1954 to 1956 and 1959.
It is worth noting that all Christmas broadcasts up until 1997 are entirely the preserve of the BBC, which is apparently somewhat reluctant to release anything other than clips of historical broadcasts. Given the BBC's notoriously atrocious track record of preserving archive material this is hardly encouraging!
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
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?
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.
Note: This remains a blog dedicated to the Christmas messages of Queen Elizabeth II. I do not intend to cover the speeches of Charles III in the same way, although I aim to continue to write a commentary of sorts on each of the King's festive broadcasts.
As the King reached the milestone of his second Christmas Broadcast, there remained a certain novelty value surrounding the relatively new reign. When, on 23rd December, a photograph of His Majesty recording the speech was released, some press referred to the 'eco-activist' monarch preparing to deliver a 'powerful message about the environment' and similar speculation. The presence of a 'living' Christmas tree with its roots intact (enabling it to be re-planted), complete with environmentally-friendly decorations, was noted. It was also reported before Christmas that Charles III had written the speech himself, without the help of advisors, since the King evidently feels he performs better when speaking 'off the cuff'.
In the event, King Charles did indeed dedicate a portion of his Message to the importance of 'caring for the Earth' (having linked the Christmas story to God, God to creation and creation to the natural world), but His Majesty is not exactly banging the drum for Net Zero here, as some media may have led one to expect. The King's message is predominantly Christian in tone, but he speaks more of other religions in this Broadcast than he had done in 2022, once again making use of the increasingly hackneyed phrase 'all faiths and none'. Nevertheless, at least one commentator claimed that Charles III's annual messages are proving to be more robustly Christian than his late mother 'had dared' to be in her festive addresses.
Elsewhere in the Broadcast, there are references to the Coronation, which His Majesty links to the importance of 'service' and those who provide it, citing the work of volunteers as 'an essential backbone of our society'; a constantly recurring theme in the annual messages of the late Queen Elizabeth.
With regard to whether the King wrote the speech himself without advice, it is important to remember that the final text of the speech must always be signed off by ministers. There seems little which, in principle, might not have been the subject of one of Elizabeth II's speeches, although the wording may have been adapted to Charles III's particular style of oratory.
Of interest to this blogger is that this is the first time the Royal Christmas Message has been recorded at Buckingham Palace since 2018. Much has happened since then, not least the change of reign. The Centre Room, seen here, had never before been used as the setting for a Christmas Broadcast. It is difficult to know, from what little we see of it, how well the East Wing renovations of Buckingham Palace are progressing (they were clearly far from complete in May 2023, as can be seen in the BBC documentary Charles III: The Coronation Year), since the production is shot rather basically using only one wide-angle with a closer-in view as the Broadcast progresses. More is made of the external shots of the Palace, with Guardsmen from the Household Division Symphonic Brass playing God Save the King on the rarely-seen balcony of the Courtyard side of the East Wing as the camera pans out to show The Mall and London behind it.
The Broadcast is produced by ITN, as it should have been in 2022. No reason for the change was given then, when production inexplicably reverted to the BBC, nor, apparently, for the return to ITN in 2023. Daylight is very evident in this production, which is unusual in recent decades where the visual emphasis has tended to be on softly-lit 'Christmassy' twilight. There is the usual interspersed footage of the Royal Family at work including this year, of course, from the Coronation. With a nod to informality, the end carol, While Shepherds Watched, is sung by the Bexley Music Primary Choir. As a production, it is very much traditional; perhaps in some ways almost a throwback to the first half of the 1980s given the simplicity of the camera angles and complete lack of gimmickry.
The most notable thing about Buckingham Palace's Centre Room is the view of the Victoria Memorial looking out onto The Mall: this is the room that the Royal Family emerge from when they make their famous balcony appearances. It was evidently an imposing-looking, somewhat Germanic sitting room in Queen Victoria's reign before being remodeled in Oriental style by Queen Mary in the 1920s. Today it appears to contain a long table and may possibly be used as a conference room. Presumably this location was chosen for the 2023 Broadcast because it was the room from which the King and Queen appeared for the iconic balcony scenes following the Coronation ceremony and procession.
A few eagle-eyed commentators noticed, as I did, that the King appears to be wearing exactly the same cobalt blue suit as he did in the previous Broadcast (although Queen Elizabeth II usually wore outfits in her Christmas broadcasts that she had worn on previous occasions, Her Late Majesty never dressed the same way in any of her Christmas Messages). This was presumably a deliberate choice, with Charles III wishing to idenfify himself as a monarch supportive of recycling and thrift.
There were a great many column inches spent speculating over how the King's first Christmas Broadcast would look, what he would say, and how his address would compare with the many Christmas messages delivered by the late Queen. Even more column inches were spent commenting on the programme after it was broadcast. Similarly, the television airwaves were filled with 'experts' fascinated by the prospect of the first television Christmas Message to be delivered by a male monarch.
It is impossible to go into all of these; suffice to say that there were those who thought His Majesty would continue with a conventional style, while others thought he would try something groundbreaking and new, to signal a generational break from his mother.
It was quite fun to see so many commentators attempt to argue that the visual and production sides of the broadcast were somehow revolutionary. On Boxing Day morning, I watched an interviewee say that it was noteworthy that King Charles had delivered his message from 'a Church' rather than a a grand state room and that this may signal His Majesty's intention to do 'on location' Broadcasts. Actually, Queen Elizabeth had wrapped up her 1999 speech from almost the same spot and recorded a number of 'on location' Broadcasts (particularly in the first decade of the Millennium), including from several churches and chapels. Some seemed amazed that the King delivered his speech standing up. True, he was, but Queen Elizabeth spoke from a standing position for the first time in 1975, did so on several occasions during the 1980s and later for ten consecutive Christmases from 2003 to 2012 (and who could forget the "stand up, sit down, keep moving" gimmickry that producers subjected Her Majesty to in the 2000 and 2001 Broadcasts?)! It was only in the last decade of her life, by which time she was in her late eighties, that Elizabeth II chose to speak from the more comfortable seated position of earlier years. Even more trivial, was the King's choice of blue suit and cheerful tie really so significant?
There had also been speculation that the Christmas Broadcasts of King Charles III would be more secular, interfaith-orientated and less Christian in tone than his mother's. On the contrary, the King's first Message is robustly Christian, talking much about his own faith while also referencing other religions as Elizabeth II had done for many years.
Essentially, what we have in the 2022 Broadcast is a largely traditional product, which has enough 'wriggle room' to allow something less conventional as King Charles' Christmas Broadcasts progress. Windsor is a 'safe' venue - a royal residence - yet the setting of St. George's Chapel had only been used once before and allows scope for future innovative developments: this coming Christmas may see the King speak from one of the familiar State Rooms of Buckingham Palace; equally, His Majesty could be on location somewhere in the North of England (or even further afield). St. George's Chapel made sense for the 2022 Message: it is consistent with the tradition of the Broadcasts and is also the place where Queen Elizabeth had so recently been laid to rest with her husband Prince Philip. The choice of the carol O Little Town Of Bethlehem is also significant, because it was the backdrop for the end of Queen Elizabeth's final Message in 2021 - the first time that the same carol has been used in 'back-to-back' Broadcasts: here is a clear signal of continuity. My own instinct is that the production will proceed cautiously, at least for the first few years.
If we want to look for more tangible differences between the Christmas Broadcasts of Queen Elizabeth II and the first annual Message of King Charles III, we can study their respective styles of speech and use of language. Queen Elizabeth was somewhat averse to the use of superlatives; King Charles is not. It is difficult to imagine , for example, Elizabeth II using phrases such as 'I cannot thank you enough' and 'with all my heart' as His Majesty did in 2022. However, given the circumstances, it was an understandably emotional Broadcast.
As December comes around once more, there is not long to wait to see whether the 2023 Broadcast will be produced in a similar vein to the 2022 address.
At the time of writing, the precise cause of the death of Queen Elizabeth has not been officially released, although it has been speculated that she was suffering from a form of bone marrow cancer. Did Her Majesty have any indication that the 2021 Christmas Message, which was recorded two months after the first signs that her health was failing, would be her last? It is true that the Queen alluded to 'passing the baton' from one generation to the next, but her two written Platinum Jubilee messages seemed to indicate that she considered that she would be around for a while to come.
If Queen Elizabeth II had lived to deliver her Platinum Jubilee year Christmas Broadcast, it is likely that her message would have had a similar tone to the previous Jubilee year messages of 1977, 2002 and 2012. Her Majesty would no doubt have thanked the many who marked the Jubilee year in some way - especially during the main celebrations in June - for their loyalty and support. There would probably have been extensive use of montage footage of those celebrations interspersed with the Queen's words (at one time, these images would perhaps have been shown during the rendition of God Save the Queen, but in recent years there has been more of an emphasis on the musicians that perform it). Elizabeth II may have alluded to her own health difficulties (though not in a major way), which had reduced her participation in the main Jubilee events, and very likely acknowledged the economic and social difficulties affecting millions in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth.
King George V at the microphone; 1930s.
Christmas Day also marked ninety years to the day since the late Queen's grandfather, King George V, delivered the very first Christmas Broadcast to Britain and the Empire. Elizabeth II was one of very few people left alive who may have remembered that momentous occasion first-hand, and with her keen sense of history, continuity and the importance of anniversaries may well have referred to this other significant milestone; perhaps within the context some sort of reflection on finding comfort in the continuation of the familiar and the importance of community spirit in troubled times.
Sadly, to speculate is academic, as events intervened last September. The 2022 Broadcast turned out to be a very different speech from the new King Charles III (which I will look at in my next post). The King chose to speak of Elizabeth II in personal terms, as a mother rather than as Queen, and the unique event of the Platinum Jubilee - which would have been the central event of the royal year - was not mentioned at all.
The King delivering his first television broadcast as monarch; 9th September, 2022.
In recent days it has been reported that, rather than being produced by ITV as planned, the first Christmas Broadcast of the reign of King Charles III has actually been produced by the BBC (the programme was evidently recorded on Tuesday 13th December). If true, this would be quite surprising.
The existing two-year rotational system was first devised in the mid-1990s, alternating between the BBC and ITV, later incorporating Sky News from 2011 onwards. The purpose was officially to add 'fresh blood' to the Broadcasts, but was in no small measure motivated by a desire to punish the BBC over the notoriousPanorama interview between Martin Bashir and Diana, Princess of Wales (which was itself motivated by an intention to embarrass the then Prince of Wales), which the Palace considered it had been treated discourteously over.
ITN had produced what turned out to be Queen Elizabeth II's final Christmas Message in 2021. Planning for the 2022 Broadcast would presumably have been well underway by the time of the Queen's death in September, since each producing network considers its back-to-back programmes as a two-year project. The BBC, which had been responsible for the 2019 and 2020 Broadcasts, had not been expected to resume production until 2025. I can see no obvious reason why the Palace should wish to 'punish' ITV: the network has generally 'kept its nose clean' in its associations with the Royal family and I have written many times over the years in my blog posts that the ITN Christmas Broadcasts have been as good as those produced by the BBC - and sometimes better.
Perhaps the most plausible possible explanation is that the existing rota agreement was always intended to expire at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, with production reverting to the BBC until new arrangements are made for the reign of King Charles. However, it is odd that there had been no comment from Buckingham Palace, ITV or the BBC to clarify the situation.
Queen Elizabeth II's ITN-produced final Christmas Broadcast; 2021.
As we reflect upon the incalculable loss of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, one of the many things we are sorrowful about is that we will never again hear her reassuring, familiar tones in the Royal Christmas Message, which most of us knew simply (if erroneously) as 'the Queen's speech'. For many who would not consider themselves regular 'royal watchers' throughout the year, this was the moment when they gave Elizabeth II their attention. For millions, the late Queen was as much a part of Christmas Day as crackers and presents. Although Her Majesty had, for the first time, been displaying more worrying signs of frailty at the end of last year; I, for one, could never have envisaged that the 2021 Broadcast would be her last.
In her record-breaking reign, Queen Elizabeth II delivered a staggering sixty-nine Christmas broadcasts (1969 being - famously - the only exception), of which sixty-two were televised. If ever we attempt to understand the personality of this most remarkable of monarchs, the Queen's annual festive message to the peoples of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth is the best place to look. We see a woman of extraordinary goodness and optimism: modest, compassionate and understanding of those who are often less appreciated than they should be. A woman of profound Christian faith who accepted her role as destiny ordained and kept her promise to serve for life.
Sadly, I will never again feel that 'buzz' in the autumn when I realise that planning will already be underway for the Queen's next Christmas message, culminating in scouring the Internet late on Christmas Eve night, looking for the first evidence somewhere in the world of the official publicity photograph, revealing what colour Her Majesty is wearing, which residence and room the Broadcast is filmed in and what the 'set' looks like. Although His Majesty King Charles III will certainly maintain the tradition of the annual Broadcast, the Christmas Day 2022 message will seem very different without the 'presenter' (as Queen Elizabeth described herself in the 2017 Broadcast) of the past seventy years. May Her Late Majesty rest in peace.
In a highly personal Message, Queen Elizabeth II pays tribute to her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, who had died the previous April. Her Majesty acknowledges that this year she particularly understands how difficult it is at Christmas for those who have lost loved ones and how she has drawn comfort from the public response to Prince Philip's death. The Queen praises the Duke's service and humour and speaks of how the royal family will miss his 'mischievous twinkle', yet concedes: 'But life, of course, consists of final partings as well as first
meetings; and as much as I and my family miss him, I know he would want
us to enjoy Christmas.' Elizabeth II says that the family will find 'joy' in Christmas even 'with one familiar laugh missing this year'.
More positively, the Queen looks ahead to her upcoming Platinum Jubilee year and the 2022 Commonwealth Games, as well as reflecting on the 'wonder' of the Christmas story through the eyes of young children.
Commentary:
2021 was a dreadful year for Elizabeth II. The death of her beloved husband of seventy-three years; ongoing negative publicity surrounding the Dukes of York and Sussex; her numerous reported health problems after so many healthy years - a back problem at Balmoral forcing her to give up riding; cutting back on alcohol for health reasons; being seen using a walking stick in public 'for comfort' on two occasions for the first time since her knee operations of the early 2000s; being ordered to rest by doctors for several weeks following a brief hospitalisation for an undisclosed ailment; then being forced to miss her Remembrance Sunday appearance at the Cenotaph in November due to a back injury - and at the end of all that, Her Majesty felt compelled to cancel her planned family Christmas at Sandringham because of ongoing uncertainty and chaos due to the British Government's approach towards Covid restrictions and the Omicron variant spreading in the UK.
However, the Queen does not dwell on her other problems and it is the late Duke of Edinburgh who takes centre stage in one of Her Majesty's most poignant Christmas Messages to date. There might be a slight air of fragility around an Elizabeth II who is now the last remaining senior royal of her generation, but the Queen appears reassuringly well and largely unchanged from the previous year's Broadcast. Seldom have we seen Her Majesty use such personal phrases as 'my beloved Philip' or 'that mischievous, enquiring twinkle was as bright at the end as when I first set eyes on him.' Her Majesty seems to speak in even more emotional terms than in her 2002 speech - the year her mother and sister died just month before her Golden Jubilee commemorations were due to start. Indeed, the Monarch's personal tone was much commented on in the press.
In addition to the affectionate tributes in the text of the message, the Duke of Edinburgh also has a visible presence in the Broadcast. Dressed in festive red for the first time in a decade, the Queen also wears her Sapphire Chrysanthemum Brooch which has many associations with her husband. Her Majesty famously wore it on her honeymoon pictures in 1947, at the christening of her second child Princess Anne and numerous other occasions in Prince Philip's presence. Elizabeth II also wears the brooch in the photograph at her side, where she is pictured with the Duke of Edinburgh in 2007 in a photograph (a re-creation of the honeymoon pictures) taken by Fiona Hanson to mark their Diamond Wedding.
The production rota reverted to ITN, who produced their first Christmas Broadcast since 2016. The Queen speaks from the White Drawing Room of Windsor Castle (last used as the location of a Christmas Broadcast in 1997). The 'set' is rather more luxurious than the previous year's pared-down 'lockdown' Message; with more flowers and decorations, better lighting and Her Majesty appears to have had her usual Christmas Broadcast professional 'makeover' (which she does not seem to have had in 2020). However, there are no 'roaming' camera angles and the Queen is only shown in two shots - wide-angle and close-up.
The programme begins with The Central Band of the Royal British Legion playing God Save the Queen in the grounds of Windsor Castle. A wide-angle shot of the rear of the Castle is shown before a montage of footage and photographs of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh is seen, with a voice-over of Elizabeth II praising her husband at their Golden Wedding celebrations in 1997. The last of these is a close-up of Fiona Hanson's Diamond Wedding photograph at the side of the Queen, before Her Majesty begins her 2021 speech. The message is interspersed with the customary relevant footage; this year relating to the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme, senior members of the Royal Family (including a brief clip from the Christmas segment of the 1969 Royal Family documentary) and the Commonwealth Games. As the Queen ends, she quotes a line from the carol O Little Town of Bethlehem to lead into the carol itself being sung inside Windsor Castle's St. George's Hall by the Singology Community Choir. The closing shot is an impressive view of the rear and gardens of the Castle with bright sunshine behind.
Queen Elizabeth II's 'Cop 26' Message, Windsor Castle, November 2021
Notes:
This is the third consecutive Christmas Broadcast to be filmed at Windsor and the sixth consecutive speech to camera by Elizabeth II to be recorded at the Castle. The Green Drawing Room was used for the previous two Christmas Messages, while the White Drawing Room was used for the three non-Christmas recordings made since April 2020.
There seems to be a 'nod' here to the 1997 Broadcast, twenty-four years earlier. 1997 was the year ITN first produced the Message and was the year the restoration of St. George's Hall was completed following the 1992 fire. Both the White Drawing Room and St George's Hall were seen in the 1997 Broadcast, as they are here.
This is Queen Elizabeth II's seventieth Christmas Message (including the written Message of 1969) and her sixty-ninth Christmas Broadcast (including seven 'sound only' Broadcasts).
This was Elizabeth II's second 'speech to camera' of 2021. A video message was shown to the assembled world leaders and dignitaries gathered at the 'COP 26' climate summit in Glasgow, as the Queen was forced to cancel her personal appearance following medical advice. This message was also recorded in the White Drawing Room of Windsor Castle, though the arrangement of the room is very different.
Instead of the usual selection of ornate antique chairs Her Majesty usually uses for her Christmas Messages, the Queen is seen here seated in a more modern, more comfortable-looking chair. It appears to be the same chair and cushion used by the Queen in the 'Cop 26' message the previous month (though the cushion's presence is more discrete in the Christmas Broadcast). The change could be due to the Queen's reported back problems, cited earlier.
In the 2021 Broadcast, Elizabeth II wears her brooch on her right, rather than her left, which she usually does. A change of this nature is normally only made by the Queen when the design of an outfit requires it, but that is evidently not the case here. This detail was also noted by The Court Jeweller. I agree with this blogger that the change is probably to do with the 'framing' of the image - to bring the brooch closer to the photograph where the Queen also wears the Sapphire Chrysanthemum - rather than because of some hidden meaning. Elizabeth II has only worn a brooch on her right in two previous Messages: 1967 and 1993.
Queen Elizabeth II once again topped the Christmas Day ratings in the United Kingdom with combined viewing figures of 9.1 million. This is considerably up on the 8.4 million who tuned in the previous year. Many would have been interested to hear what Her Majesty had to say about the death of her husband, while others would have been curious to see how she appeared following her reported health issues in the autumn.
The Christmas tree in the background is decorated with over one hundred gold and white stars, specially made by children and staff of the Royal School, Windsor.
Well, well, well, now there's a turn up. According to reports Channel 4, that most Left-leaning and near-subversive of British television networks, is keen to 'air' the Queen's Christmas speech. Following the Royal Family's well-publicised fall-out with the BBC over its recent documentary The Princes and the Press, relations between the Palace and the publicly funded broadcaster - which have never been quite the same since the infamous Martin Bashir interview with Diana, Princess of Wales in 1995 - are at an all-time low and, according to an insider, Channel 4 have spotted an opportunity to produce the annual Message: ' they've made it clear they would like to film the speech this year — especially
if the Royals punish the Beeb and withdraw their rights, although that
does seem unlikely. But the Royal family have shown they have backbone
and won’t stand for much more nonsense.' Apparently Channel 4 'would definitely love to show the Queen’s speech this year should the BBC be punished again.'
Channel 4's interest seems, to say the least, unlikely. There appears to have been no evident reason in the past why the network would not have been granted permission to air the Broadcast at 3pm on Christmas Day in line with other main and news channels if it had requested to do so. Instead, Channel 4 has since 1993 courted controversy by airing its own 'alternative' message to rival the Queen on Christmas Day at 3pm. Last year, C4 even produced a spoof 'deep fake' message from "Queen Elizabeth II" which was considered disingenuous by many and generated more than 200 Ofcom complaints.
It would seem surprising, therefore, if Palace officials were to reach out enthusiastically to this unexpected 'olive branch'. In any case, Channel 4 will have to wait: The BBC completed its turn of "back-to-back" Broadcasts in 2020 and rotation reverts to ITV for the next two years - and then onto Sky. Production of the Message is not due to return to the BBC until 2025. What kind of relationship the Corporation will have with the Royal Family then remains to be seen. Still, it is an interesting thought: what would a Channel 4 produced Royal Christmas Message look like?
Amidst all the current concern about Queen Elizabeth II's health there was one piece of reassuring information from seasoned royal commentator Robert Hardman. According to Hardman's sources, plans to record the Christmas Broadcast 'remain unaltered' and 'staff are finalising the location this week.'
The annual Broadcast is one duty that the Queen can perform from 'home'. It is usually recorded in early December, and as Her Majesty ages its location and timing can be adjusted to suit her.
One interesting question this year is where the Christmas Broadcast will be filmed. When pre-recording of the annual Christmas Messages began in 1960, the 'default' location moved from Sandringham to Buckingham Palace. Back in the relative normality of 2018, Elizabeth II recorded the eighth successive Christmas Message from the Palace; indeed, at the time only three of the nineteen productions since the millennium had been recorded elsewhere.
It seemed, therefore, a refreshing change when the 2019 production was filmed at Windsor Castle. Until that year Windsor had only been used as the location on five previous occasions in Elizabeth II's long reign: 1982, 1984, 1997, 1999 and 2003. One reason given for neglecting the ancient Castle when choosing recording venues for the annual Broadcast is that Windsor's proximity to Heathrow Airport means that noise from overhead passing aircraft makes sound recording problematic.
Christmas Broadcast 2018; Buckingham Palace
Then came the Covid lockdowns of 2020. Elizabeth II chose to isolate at Windsor with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, and one of her first duties that April was to speak to the peoples of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth in a message recorded at the Castle. Another broadcast followed in May, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE-Day: an event which could not be celebrated in the planned manner due to the restrictions in place. By Christmas of 2020, the United Kingdom was in lockdown again, and the Queen's festive speech was once more recorded at Windsor Castle in the Green Drawing Room: the very room where she had recorded her Christmas Broadcast a year earlier in very different circumstances.
In November 2021, Elizabeth II recorded a message to assembled world leaders and dignitaries at the 'Cop26' climate conference in Glasgow. As is well known, Her Majesty had intended to deliver the speech in person, but was resting at Windsor on doctors' orders following an undisclosed health problem. What is perhaps less known is that this was the fifth consecutive time that Elizabeth II had recorded a speech to camera at Windsor Castle; meaning that the Queen had made as many broadcasts from the Castle in a period of less than two years as she had done in the first fifty-one years of her reign. Suddenly, the 'refreshing change' of 2019 looks remarkably ongoing.
It seems likely (assuming that - hopefully - the Queen is well enough to record this year's Christmas Message) that the venue for the 2021 Broadcast will once again be Windsor. Her Majesty's recent health difficulties and the fact that she has apparently yet to move back to Buckingham Palace in the post-lockdown era would make the Castle the natural choice. Who knows, by Christmas 2022, when, all being well, the Queen will have celebrated her Platinum Jubilee and will hopefully be restored to her usual health, this blogger may be writing that it is time to move the Christmas Broadcast back to Buckingham Palace for a change!
The new Queen Elizabeth II gives her first Christmas Broadcast exactly twenty years after her grandfather, King George V,deliveredthe very first Royal Christmas Message in 1932.
Her Majesty pays tribute to her late father King George VI, who had died the previous February, as well as to her grandfather who began the tradition of the annual Broadcast. While citing their examples, the Queen looks ahead to her Coronation and dedicates herself to a life of service to Britain and the Commonwealth and thanks her Subjects for their support:
'My father, and my grandfather before him, worked all their lives to
unite our peoples ever more closely, and to maintain its ideals which
were so near to their hearts. I shall strive to carry on their work.
Already you have given me strength to do so. For, since my accession
ten months ago, your loyalty and affection have been an immense support
and encouragement. I want to take this Christmas Day, my first
opportunity, to thank you with all my heart.'
Commentary:
At the age of only twenty-six, Elizabeth II was making her first Broadcast as Queen of the United Kingdom and a diminishing Empire, and as Head of a growing Commonwealth. As a princess, the young Elizabeth already had experience of broadcasting (one report claimed that she had already made as many as thirty broadcasts) and, unlike her father, was comfortable at the microphone; but this was not only her first Christmas Message, it was her first broadcast as Monarch.
How Princess Elizabeth had ascended to the throne - in Kenya while representing her father on an overseas tour - is well known. The poor health of King George VI had been no secret and his medical prognosis was not good, but the young Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip had hoped that the heavy burden they knew one day must come was still some years away. The King's death, when it came, had been sudden and unexpected.
When Christmas 1952 arrived, Elizabeth II had been Queen for more than ten months. Exactly twenty years after King George V had delivered the very first Royal Christmas Message, Her Majesty was the first British monarch to inherit the Christmas Broadcast as an established annual tradition. Despite the disruption that the presence of a BBC crew would have caused to the Christmas Day of a young wife with two small children, there had been no question that the Message would go ahead as usual. Details had been confirmed by mid December and Elizabeth II's first broadcast as Queen was eagerly anticipated by the press.
The message from Queen Elizabeth II's speech is one of continuity, both in terms of the tradition of the Christmas Broadcast and as a 'blueprint' for her reign. As though to emphasise the point, the BBC reported that the Queen, speaking from the study at Sandringham as King George V and King George VI had done, was using the same desk and chair as her father and grandfather before her. Her Majesty pays tribute to both men, in whom she clearly believes she has been given the perfect example of constitutional monarchy. The new Queen sees herself as a bridge between the old and the new, defending enduring values while encouraging scientific development and exploration; she considers that she has a duty to promote the Commonwealth, encourage peace between peoples and to remind listeners of the Christian message of the birth of Jesus. These themes would echo down the decades in her Christmas Broadcasts.
Elizabeth II delivers her speech in a clear, high-pitched voice: youthful yet self-assured; apparently awed by her new responsibility, but far from overwhelmed. By the time of her Coronation broadcast six months later the Queen would seem to have grown in the role and her voice had matured noticeably. The Broadcast was well-received with one report stating:
'The messages have always had two things in
common. One has been the frank faith of the Monarch in the power of a
Divine Being. The other has been the way in which the Monarch has spoken
with parental affection, as to a family, rather than as a ruling
sovereign. Both these notes were struck with new inspiration and with,
seemingly, even greater conviction by Her Majesty the Queen in her first Christmasbroadcast.'
At the time of writing, almost seventy years have passed since the 1952 Broadcast. Over the years the tone and the language - and maybe to some extent the Queen's accent - have changed. Elizabeth II can no longer speak of an Empire, and phrases such as 'my peoples' and 'I give you my affectionate greetings' may seem dated and even condescending in the 2020s. However, the themes, the essential values and above all Elizabeth II's commitment and sense of duty have remained steadfast and are still evident in the Queen's Christmas Broadcasts today.
Notes:
It was announced on this day by the prime minister of New Zealand that the Queen's Christmas Day speech the following year would be delivered from Auckland.
It has been suggested that the BBC had approached Buckingham Palace regarding the possibility of a televised Broadcast as early as the first year of the Queen's reign (Lacey, Royal: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2002). However, in 1952 only a small minority of people in the United Kingdom - let alone the Commonwealth - possessed a television so such overtures were easily rebuffed. Many Britons would acquire their first sets in 1953 so that they could watch the Coronation live. By the mid-1950s it was becoming much more difficult for the Palace to resist the television cameras.
Five years earlier, during a tour of South Africa, the then Princess Elizabeth had made her famous twenty-first birthday broadcast with the often-quoted lines: 'I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short,
shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great Imperial
Commonwealth to which we all belong.' In the 1952 Christmas Message, the sentiment is even more emphatic, as the Queen states: 'I want to ask you all, whatever your religion may be, to pray for me on [Coronation] day - to pray that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out
the solemn promises I shall be making, and that I may faithfully serve
Him and you, all the days of my life.' It is, perhaps, surprising that this is not quoted more often by those wishing to downplay periodic rumours that Elizabeth II intends to abdicate.
The speech was broadcast live at 1507 GMT which was then the traditional time.
It was reported that the speech was heard by the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Queen Mary, Princess Margaret, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Princess Alexandra and Prince Michael. Prince Philip stayed near the Queen to give her confidence (Seward, The Queen's Speech, 2015), while presumably the other senior royals listened together in another room at Sandringham.
While King George VI had spoken frankly about his health issues in his annual messages in the preceding years, Elizabeth II did not speak much of her personal life and would not make a practice of doing so in subsequent years.
Trivia:
On a personal note, as Elizabeth II's reign begins, this ten-year project of reviewing retrospectively every Christmas Broadcast of the Queen's reign (with each new Broadcast reviewed as it occurred) is now complete and reviews of all the Broadcasts to date are now available (as of January 2021). This does not mean that the Blog ends here: there will hopefully be many new Christmas Broadcasts to review in the years to come and I am now free to post 'on a whim' about matters relating to the Christmas Message!
Produced by: BBC (in association with the New Zealand Broadcasting Service)
Theme:
Speaking from Auckland a little over six months after her Coronation, Elizabeth II reflects on the six-month tour of the Empire and Commonwealth of which she and the Duke of Edinburgh were on the first leg. Her Majesty speaks of some of the countries they had already seen, including Bermuda, Jamaica, Fiji and Tonga; and mentions some of the places they would later visit, including Australia, Ceylon and beyond to Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean.
The Queen expresses her wish to see as much as possible of the peoples and countries of the Empire-Commonwealth and 'to learn at first hand something of their triumphs and difficulties and something of their hopes and fears.' Elizabeth II compares and contrasts the first with what some were calling the 'new' Elizabethan age and expresses her hope and optimism regarding the future of the emerging Commonwealth.
The Queen ends by expressing her sadness and sorrow to the people of New Zealand regarding the Tangiwai railway accident which had happened late on Christmas Eve, resulting in the tragic loss of 151 lives.
Commentary:
1953 marked the first and to date only time that the Royal Christmas Message has been broadcast in its entirety from outside the United Kingdom. It had been an extremely busy year for the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth II with the ceremonial funeral of her grandmother Queen Mary, planning for the Coronation and the massive carnival event itself, preparations for the six-month delayed tour of the Empire-Commonwealth and departing for the tour in November. Now, Elizabeth II was spending Christmas away from home for the first time in the Auckland summer heat, thousands of miles away from the chilly winter breezes of Sandringham.
The Prime Minister of New Zealand had announced exactly a year earlier, on Christmas Day 1952, that the Queen would deliver the 1953 Broadcast from Auckland; but even with a year to plan, the event still presented a risky technical challenge. A BBC memo hailed an opportunity for 'a spectacular triumph for Commonwealth Communications...opening a new chapter in the tradition of royal Christmas broadcasts (Pimlott, The Queen, 1996) but communications between New Zealand and the western hemisphere were unreliable and there was also the potential for a disaster which could damage both the reputation of Australasian broadcasting and Commonwealth relations (Pimlott, 1996).
Nevertheless, the BBC decided to go ahead. The message was transmitted from Auckland to Wellington via Landline then directly by radio telephone via Sidney and, further along the route, Barbados. As a back-up in case of poor reception, it was also transmitted from a Royal New Zealand Navy transmitter from the short-wave transmitters of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service (Seward, The Queen's Speech, 2015). In case of disaster, a pre-recording is said to have been made on the Gothic at Fiji and flown to Sidney for transmission to London; although this also carried technical risks (Pimlott, 1996).
The transmission was handled by Himatangi Radio Station and the message was delivered at 9pm Auckland time, which was 9am in London. The message was received right on time and took twenty minutes to transmit to London. Every possible precaution was in place: 'No risk could be taken and nothing was left to chance. Not taking any
chance of a fluctuation in hydro power, the four diesel engines of the
station’s stand-by plant were brought into operation as the time for the
broadcast drew near. They provide more than three times the power
required to operate the station for such a broadcast with no risk of
fluctuation. The station became a self-contained unit.'
Everything went according to plan and Elizabeth II was heard clearly by her British Subjects twelve thousand miles away (Pimlott, 1996). The BBC and the General Post Office in London both acknowledged that a good recording of the Broadcast had been made. The Message was later rebroadcast by the BBC at the traditional time of 3pm (Seward, 2015).
As the Broadcast begins, an announcer's voice intones: 'This is New Zealand calling the Commonwealth. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second'. Then a formal, orchestral version of God Save the Queen is played. The Queen speaks for almost exactly eight minutes of the ten-minute programme before God Save the Queen is played again at the end.
Given the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the Commonwealth features heavily in Her Majesty's speech. The term 'Empire-Commonwealth' was still being used in this transitional era, but Elizabeth II was keen to continue her father's work in developing this new association of nations: 'the Commonwealth bears no resemblance to the Empires of the past. It is
an entirely new conception, built on the highest qualities of the spirit
of man: friendship, loyalty and the desire for freedom and peace.'
What is, perhaps, surprising is the Queen's apparent swipe at her Tudor predecessor and namesake Elizabeth I. Elizabeth II states:
'Some people have expressed the hope that my reign may mark a new
Elizabethan age. Frankly I do not myself feel at all like my great Tudor
forebear, who was blessed with neither husband nor children, who ruled
as a despot and was never able to leave her native shores.'
The reference to a 'new Elizabethan age' had been used and alluded to many times in Britain after the new Queen's accession, including by Britain's legendary (and in 1953 still serving) prime minister Winston Churchill; but the term was intended to look ahead to a new era of a flourishing of art, culture, exploration and national pride after the grim war years. Absolutely nobody was comparing the constitutional Sovereign Elizabeth II directly or personally with Elizabeth I, who was an absolute Monarch in line with the rulers of her age. As for 'despot', Elizabeth I was probably no more tyrannical than any other monarch of her time; in fact, as a highly intelligent, skilled political operator there are good arguments (not for here) for suggesting she was less so. In these more patriotic times, many Britons with an interest in history were fond of 'Good Queen Bess' who faced down the Spanish Armada. Ingrid Seward argues that Elizabeth II was making a conscious effort with her words here to appear 'warm and homely' as a wife and mother of the Commonwealth family and her British Subjects: 'She was acknowledging not only the change in her own role, but also that of her country, which was no longer to be seen as a conquering imperial power, but as a much more benevolent force in the world' (Seward, 2015). As the Queen herself said in her speech, 'I want to show that the Crown is not merely an abstract symbol of our unity but a personal and living bond between you and me.'
Notes:
Listening to the recording today, it is interesting to note how much
more matured and confident Elizabeth II sounds than she had done in her
first Broadcast the year before. Her Majesty had been on the throne
almost two years and was clearly growing in the role. However, her
voice still carries somewhat antiquated characteristics - even for the time - of 'marked'
received pronunciation and has echoes of the rather grand and regal speaking
style of her father and grandfather before her; perhaps this was
expected of a Monarch at the time. Over time, Elizabeth II would soften
her vowels when broadcasting and adopt the more brisk, business-like
tone of contemporary BBC announcers. The beginnings of this change can
be detected in the first televised Broadcast of 1957; and ten years
later, in 1963, when the Queen delivered a sound-only Broadcast due to
pregnancy (as she had done in 1959), her voice seemed to have altered
noticeably.
The Queen's comments about the Tangiwai rail disaster, which had happened late on Christmas Eve, were a last-minute addition to the script. 151 of the 285 passengers and crew on board the Wellington to Auckland night express lost their lives when the Whangaehu River bridge collapsed beneath the train plunging the locomotive and first six carriages into the river. The tragedy remains New Zealand's worst rail accident and made headlines around the world. From 1960 onwards, when the Broadcast was pre-recorded, it would not be possible for the Queen to react in her speech to major disasters that happened in the days before Christmas. In 1988, Elizabeth II had already recorded her Christmas Message when the Lockerbie bombing occurred on 21st December. On that occasion, a decision was taken to record a brief audio message which was played immediately after the main programme.
It may surprise some, particularly given the fulsome tribute she had paid to her father the previous year, that Elizabeth II makes no reference in her speech to the death and ceremonial funeral of Queen Mary, who had died the previous March. The Queen's formidable grandmother had been at the heart of the Royal Family through six reigns (beginning with her grandmother-in-law Queen Victoria), two world wars and the Abdication crisis. Elizabeth II's Christmas speeches were as yet mainly courtier-written and the Queen had paid her public tributes to Queen Mary at the time of her death; beyond that, it was presumably regarded as a family matter. There would not be another death of a senior member of the royal family (albeit technically a former one) until Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, when public attitudes were very different and it would have been considered unthinkable for the Queen not to have paid tribute to her former daughter-in-law in her Christmas Message (Her Majesty already having been compelled to make a special broadcast before the funeral). Five years later, Elizabeth II would refer to the deaths of her mother and sister in her 2002 Christmas Broadcast, both having died earlier in the year.
It was reported that the Queen's Message was introduced by New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, who had conquered the summit of Mount Everest earlier in the year, with the news reaching Britain on Coronation Day.
Queen Elizabeth II and her family from their 1954 Christmas card
Location: Sandringham
Produced by: BBC
Theme:
The Queen reflects on her marathon six-month world tour of the Commonwealth with the Duke of Edinburgh and how the previous Christmas she had been speaking from Auckland, New Zealand. Her Majesty compares the 'warmth and peacefulness' of the home fireside with the Commonwealth 'hearth' and the 'contrast between its homely security and the storm which sometimes seems
to be brewing outside, in the darkness of uncertainty and doubt that
envelops the whole world'.
Elizabeth II goes on to praise what would in future years become known as 'unsung heroes' - those who appear to lead dreary, uneventful, sometimes lonely lives but in fact have an important role to play through their 'steadfastness'; in wartime, the realm of scientific discovery and many other areas:
'And so it is that this Christmas Day I want to send a special message
of encouragement and good cheer to those of you whose lot is cast in
dull and unenvied surroundings, to those whose names will never be
household words, but to whose work and loyalty we owe so much.
May you be proud to remember - as I am myself - how much depends on
you and that even when your life seems most monotonous, what you do is
always of real value and importance to your fellow men.'
Again referring to Christmas as a family festival, the Queen ends by remembering 'the very special Family' in Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus.
Commentary:
The years 1954-1956 represent the most difficult to research of Elizabeth II's Christmas Messages. The novelty of the Queen's first speech as Monarch in 1952 and the 1953 Broadcast live from New Zealand were over and Her Majesty was still several years away from embracing the age of television. Of course, the text survives for each of these speeches and it is known that Elizabeth II delivered them from her Sandringham study as her father and grandfather had done before her; but other than that these three years (with the possible exception of 1956) remain essentially lost in an historical void, with little of interest remembered about them. However, in the absence of production values to analyse it is at least possible to study the Queen's actual words.
Elizabeth II was still only twenty-eight years old and celebrating Christmas once more in the comforting surroundings of Sandringham after the arduous six-month Empire-Commonwealth tour which had lasted from November 1953 to May 1954. It seems clear that having been separated from her two young children the previous Christmas had affected her. Elizabeth II alludes to this and speaks of the importance of family: 'there is nothing quite like the family gathering in familiar
surroundings, centred on the children whose Festival this truly is, in
the traditional atmosphere of love and happiness that springs from the
enjoyment of simple well-tried things.'
Elizabeth II would continue to draw attention to 'unsung heroes' in her future Messages: the anonymous, often under-appreciated people who make a vital contribution to life. In fact, this theme has returned more frequently in recent years.
Notes:
As with many early royal radio broadcasts, the 1954 Christmas Message was released as a 78 RPM record. However, as of January 2021 it appears that no copy of the recording has been published online.
The Royal Christmas Message was itself a consequence of scientific progress and Elizabeth II would show an interest in and refer to various scientific discoveries and advances in many future Messages. Once the Queen finally agreed to a televised Broadcast in 1957, the annual production would be at the forefront of the latest television and digital technology, such as the move to colour in 1967, broadcasting on the Internet for the first time in 1997 and filming in 3D in 2012.
