Graphic: changes in the Christmas broadcast

One of the harder tricks mastered by the Queen over the decades is how to remain the same, an image of constancy in a changing world, yet also be subtly different.

Here, as she poses after recording the Christmas broadcast, she looks just as she has done for years, does she not? But in the details there is a story to be told that is all too easily missed.

First, the choice of location. The broadcast was recorded in the Music Room — originally called the Bow Drawing Room – at the centre of the West Front of Buckingham Palace, which might seem an unremarkable choice of venue, except that in all the years of her Christmas message, it has – as far as the current generation of Palace officials are aware – never been done in the Music Room.

Why there? Because that is where, on December 15, 1948, almost exactly 60 years ago, her first-born son was christened Charles Philip Arthur George by the Archbishop of Canterbury, using water from the River Jordan.

The other notable difference in this year’s Christmas broadcast is that it will be the first to include personal archive footage, in this case previously unseen film of Princess Elizabeth playing with the one-year-old Prince Charles at Clarence House in 1949. It was shot by the royal photographer Graham Thompson.

Sharp-eyed viewers may notice that the pearls worn by Princess Elizabeth in the film are the same ones she is wearing now; her grandfather, George V, gave them to her when she was a girl, and they have remained her favourites ever since. The heart-shaped brooch she is wearing was inherited from Queen Mary, and is set with the fifth part of the Cullinan diamond.

On the piano behind her – a boudoir grand by John Broadwood & Sons, last played by Condoleezza Rice in a private recital for the Queen three weeks ago – is an array of family photographs that normally live in the Queen’s private apartments, including one of Prince Charles, aged 26, as a pilot with the Fleet Air Arm, one of the princes William and Harry at Harry’s passing-out parade at Sandhurst two years ago, and one — obscured – of the Duke of Edinburgh. The ornaments are all treasured possessions borrowed from her apartment, so the message is obvious: Christmas is a family time of year, and family is as important to the Queen as it is to everyone watching the broadcast.

The Christmas message, produced by Nick Vaughan-Barratt of the BBC and broadcast at 3pm on BBC One and ITV1, is one of the rare occasions when the Queen does not turn to the Government for advice and is able to voice her own views. In this year’s message, written in consultation with the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen will pay tribute to those who have led unselfish lives in the service of others. She will also acknowledge the many people who have been touched by world events, whether through violence or the collapsing global economy.

She also finds time to mention the Prince of Wales’s 60th birthday and the support that her family has given her. Following on from the precedent set last year, the 50th anniversary of the first televised Christmas message, the broadcast will also be available on the Royal Channel on the YouTube website from the same time.

Last year six million people watched it on BBC One, and another 1.7 million on ITV1; among them will be the Queen herself who, as the Duke of York revealed, sometimes watches her own Christmas speech alone on Christmas Day to see if it comes across in the right way.

Prince Andrew said that she sometimes preferred to leave the room while the rest of the family gathered round to watch the broadcast at Sandringham. In an ITV1 programme screened after last year’s address he said: “Sometimes the Queen watches it and sometimes sits in another room thinking, ‘Has it come across in the right way?’, but it’s always been a part of the family tradition.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Times Christmas appeal: Letter from the Editor
• Conferences — what a waste of money
• Schools supremo learns a painful lesson