It was not much noticed at the time, but 2010 marked the Queen's 70 years as a broadcaster. On October 13 1940, with her younger sister, Princess Margaret Rose, sitting beside her ("Come on, Margaret," she enjoined her when it was time to say goodnight), Princess Elizabeth broadcast on the BBC's Children's Hour on radio. Her message was chiefly directed to the children of the Empire, including those sent overseas from Britain – because of the Second World War – to Canada, Australia, the United States and so on.
Princess Elizabeth, aged 14, reassured her audience that children who, like she, had remained behind in "the old country" were full of "cheerfulness and courage". "In the end," she promised, "all will be well… God will care for us and give us victory and peace". After victory, she said, it will be "for us" – her generation – "to make the world a better and happier place". It is touching to think that she is now almost the last of that generation still publicly engaged in this task.
This Christmas, Queen Elizabeth II broadcast from Hampton Court. If you have followed only the media reports, you will think that her main theme this year was sport. Actually, sport took up only two minutes 41 seconds of the seven minutes 18 seconds broadcast. The reason that Hampton Court was chosen was that it was there, in 1604, that King James VI of Scotland, who had recently become King James I of England, convened the conference that led to the first authorised English version of the Bible. Now most commonly known as the King James Bible, it will celebrate the 400th anniversary of its publication next year. This, which is, in an odd way, the founding document of the United Kingdom, was the real subject of her broadcast.
The Queen sought to show that the King James Bible helped quarrelling believers reach agreement "for the wider benefit of the Christian Church" and "to bring harmony to the kingdoms of England and Scotland". She praised its language, with "its most widely recognised and beautiful descriptions of the birth of Jesus Christ". This was illustrated with film of Her Majesty listening as black and oriental children from St Mary and St Pancras Church of England Primary School read some of the relevant passages.
It was a bit of a stretch to see exactly how sport came into it all. As the Queen herself put it, slightly desperately, "King James may not have anticipated quite how important sport and games were to become". But it enabled the Commonwealth to get more of a look-in and to show film of Princes William and Harry playing football ("Go, guys, go") with boys in Africa.
The Queen explained that sport was something in which people from all over the world could "gather to compete under common rules" and get the "satisfying" feeling that they were part of a group of people "dedicated to helping one another". Just before the Hampton Court choir got going with The Holly and the Ivy, the Queen, standing beside the Christmas crib, herself quoted the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:12) to reach her conclusion: "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
Because the present Queen has reigned for so long, we probably think of the Christmas message as being as much part of our history as the Coronation or the State Opening of Parliament. In fact, though, it was invented only eight years before Princess Elizabeth's first excursion into radio: in 1932, George V decided to use the then fairly new medium to broadcast to the Empire, using words drafted by Kipling.
And when the present Queen's father, George VI, came to the throne after the
chaos of the Abdication Crisis of 1936, he
was most reluctant to continue with the Christmas broadcasts. He said they
were so closely linked with his father, George V, that it would not be right
to attempt them himself; besides, he had the constant worry of his speech
impediment. There was no broadcast in 1938, but then came war. When George
VI, at Christmas 1939, gave his famous broadcast, quoting the poem At the
Gate of the Year, he unintentionally ensured that his Christmas message
became a permanent feature of the royal scene.
Indeed, one reason Elizabeth II persisted with the broadcasts is, as in so many of her actions, respect for her father's memory. She said as much in her very first Christmas broadcast as Queen, in 1952. On that occasion, she declared that those listening were part of "a far larger family", "the British Commonwealth and Empire". Today, the Empire no longer exists, the Commonwealth is no longer called "British". Indeed, the whole concept of the Head of State of the United Kingdom having some wider moral, even religious significance for more than one and a half billion people all over the world is so strange as to be almost unconstitutional.
But it is hard to begrudge it to her. I wish the Queen's advisers had kept sport out of the message altogether and thus forced us to pay attention to the bit which matters. In the King James Bible, the combined monarchy of England and Scotland did give an enduring religious, literary and political example to the world. It is cheering that King James's successor is on the throne to say so.
