Queen Elizabeth II made more Christmas broadcasts than any other Monarch but her first was one of the most poignant addresses of her life and reign.
The late Queen first spoke to country and Commonwealth on December 25 1952, just ten months after the start of her reign. It was a hard task for Elizabeth who a year earlier had heard her father, King George VI, make the same speech. His unexpected death on February 6 had made her Monarch but had left a big hole in her family life.
The speech that was broadcast on radio (televised speeches didn’t start until 1957) also made history as it was the first time a Queen had addressed the country rather than a King.
Elizabeth II would go on to make almost 70 addresses (she didn’t speak in the year the Royal Family featured in a TV documentary as she felt everyone had seen enough of the Windsors for that 12 months). And the total number of speeches by the late Queen far outstrips the total number ever made by kings in the UK.
Elizabeth II was just 26 when she first spoke to the country on Christmas Day and 95 when she made her final broadcast, on December 25 2021. She turned the innovative festive idea that her grandfather, George V, had begun in 1932 into a tradition that is now followed by kings and queens around the world. And that makes her first Christmas speech even more poignant.
