{"id":68626,"date":"2025-12-12T11:19:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/68626\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:19:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:19:22","slug":"the-queens-last-christmas-day-speech-was-also-her-most-personal-as-she-mourned-the-loss-of-my-beloved-philip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/68626\/","title":{"rendered":"The Queen’s last Christmas Day speech was also her most personal as she mourned the loss of ‘my beloved Philip’"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than 60 years, families gathered around their televisions to watch Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s Christmas<\/a> message, which became a lodestar for the nation, and a reflection of their hopes and fears.<\/p>\n

But the speech she delivered on Christmas Day 2021, which proved to be her last, was the most poignant, coming eight months after the death of her beloved husband Philip, and nine months before her own demise.<\/p>\n

Now, a Channel 5<\/a> documentary has analysed the speech, which was recorded during the pandemic \u2013 the late Queen spent her first Christmas without her husband in HMS Bubble at Windsor Castle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And it has highlighted that Elizabeth\u2019s reign encompassed the history of broadcasting \u2013 the BBC<\/a>\u2019s first radio broadcast was in 1922, four years before her birth \u2013 and by the time of her death, she had become \u2018the longest serving broadcaster in history\u2019.<\/p>\n

Broadcaster and historian Wesley Kerr told the show, Queen Elizabeth Last Christmas Message: Farewell to the Nation: \u2018She was an incredibly empathetic and warm broadcaster.<\/p>\n

\u2018You really felt that this person was communicating to you, which is what people always say about television. You are not communicating to 20 million people.<\/p>\n

\u2018You are communicating to an individual or a family in their homes and you are giving a message that you have crafted to them, which is subtly different each year.<\/p>\n

\u2018Whatever the trouble and strife, she always seeks to say something optimistic. This is as true in her last Christmas message as it was in her first Christmas message in 1952.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The late Queen Elizabeth II during her last ever Christmas broadcast with just a photograph of her ‘beloved’ Philip taken on her wedding anniversary<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Royal couple were celebrating their Golden wedding anniversary at Broadlands where they spent their honeymoon in 1947<\/p>\n

In her 69th and final message, Elizabeth, then 95, gave her most personal ever Christmas message, evoking the mood of the nation, by talking about her own grief as well as the lives lost during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u2018Although it\u2019s a time of great happiness and good cheer for many, Christmas can be hard for those who have lost loved ones,\u2019 she said. \u2018This year especially I understand why.<\/p>\n

\u2018For me in the months since the death of my beloved Philip, I have drawn great comfort from the warmth and affection of the many tributes to his life and work from around the country, the Commonwealth and the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018His sense of service, intellectual curiosity and capacity to squeeze fun out of any situation were all irrepressible. That mischievous inquiring twinkle was as bright at the end as when I first set eyes on him.\u2019<\/p>\n

However, she did not just pay tribute to her husband in words: she filmed the message in the Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, where she had spent most weekends during her married life, and where Philip died on April 9, 2021, at the age of 99.<\/p>\n

The only photograph on her desk was a portrait of the couple, taken to celebrate their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1997 and she wore the same sapphire and diamond chrysanthemum brooch as she had on her honeymoon at Broadlands in Hampshire in 1947.<\/p>\n

Journalist and broadcaster Julie Etchingham said: \u2018She always took a situation like that and made it relatable to those who were watching at home. It was the point at which she was connecting with families who had also lost loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u2018She was very specific in what she said and of course that resonated very deeply considering where we were in the pandemic at that moment.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Queen made her speech from Windsor Castle in 2019. On the desk were photographs of her husband, Prince William with his family, and the then Duke and Duchess of Cornwall but there were no pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The BBC producer John McAndrew and director, John Bennett (right) in the White Drawing room of Buckingham Palace watching the recording with the late Queen wearing 3D glasses\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018No monarch in British history other than oddly enough Elizabeth I used the symbolism of clothes and jewellery and costume design more than Elizabeth II, often very subtle but in the case of this broadcast not subtle at all,\u2019 added Kerr.<\/p>\n

\u2018 A marvellous sapphire surrounded by diamonds. That\u2019s something she wears repeatedly throughout her reign. It\u2019s one of her favourite pieces and a plain message from using the sapphire chrysanthemum brooch, a message of love.\u2019<\/p>\n

The tradition of the monarch\u2019s Christmas Message began in 1932 with the Queen\u2019s grandfather King George V. He received so many telegrams thanking him that he made it an annual tradition.<\/p>\n

During World War II the Queen\u2019s father King George VI used his message to offer reassurance during the bleak years and millons tuned in.<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth II made her first broadcast in 1952, the year of her father\u2019s death, and five years later, Prince Philip helped her create her first televised speech, which was from the Long Library, at Sandringham, in Norfolk.<\/p>\n

But, although traditional, she embraced new technology, recording her Christmas broadcast in 2012 in 3D to celebrate the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee.<\/p>\n

During the Covid pandemic, the Queen was determined to reunite the community behind her Christmas message. Children from a local school helped decorate the Christmas tree behind her.<\/p>\n

The Royal British Legion, which was celebrating its centenary, played the National Anthem, and London\u2019s Synology Community Choir recorded the carol Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

Mark De-Lisster, choral director, of Singology Community Choir, said: \u2018The Queen really wanted to hear a voice from the community, bringing people back. Galvanising the community was something that was really important to the monarch.\u2019<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Last Christmas Message: Farewell to the Nation is screened on Channel 5 at 9.05pm on December 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than 60 years, families gathered around their televisions to watch Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s Christmas message, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[8509,818,9,24,63,3994,122,124,123,4259,1245,12422],"class_list":{"0":"post-68626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-prince-philip","14":"tag-queens","15":"tag-queens-headlines","16":"tag-queens-news","17":"tag-royals","18":"tag-the-queen","19":"tag-windsor-castle"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}