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although it did not appear so at the time.
From its first showing in July 1969 and over no fewer than five repeats over the next
eighteen months the film attracted forty million viewers in the United Kingdom alone.
Elizabeth, always so stiff in the Christmas broadcasts, appeared absolutely natural, just
as she was seen in her own circle, relaxed, radiating happiness and enjoyment, making
jokes, always smiling. She was, however, not the only principal player; the object of the
film was to promote Charles as the hope of the future. The opening shots showed the
twenty-year-old Prince waterskiing and then on a bicycle in a London street. The images
were clearly intended to emphasize his contemporariness, but Charles, with his serious,
rather sad expression, conventional clothes and haircut, came across as the reverse of
‘with it’, light years away from most young people his age. There was a distinct air of
Elgar rather than the Rolling Stones. The old-fashioned aura which he presented through
youth into middle-age was to lead later commentators to dub him ‘a social dinosaur’.
The camera switched to his heritage, focusing on his mother in uniform, solemn and
erect, taking the salute on her charger, Burmese, at her official birthday parade,
Trooping the Colour. The atmosphere of grand informality throughout the film was
epitomized by the next clip which showed a footman holding out a salver of carefully
prepared carrots which Elizabeth, dismounting with a skilful flick of her cumbersome
riding habit, fed to the horses. Tradition and continuity were represented by the kilted
piper marching at 9 a.m. under the Queen’s windows on the west side of Buckingham
Palace, a custom begun by Queen Victoria to remind her of her beloved Highlands. The
same ceremony takes place at Balmoral and at Windsor but not at Sandringham. (On
the Queen’s official visit to Tokyo in 1975 the Japanese with characteristic thoroughness
arranged for a kilted Japanese piper to entertain her outside her windows at the
Akasaka Palace and make her feel at home.)
Elizabeth was seen at work with her Private Secretary, Sir Michael Adeane, her
manner very crisp and executive as she opened personal mail and ran over the speech
which had been prepared for her to deliver in Brazil. ‘Too much history which I would
think they know already,’ she said, ‘and not enough thanks. It seems a bit churlish not to
thank them for it…’ The forward planning which went into her official year was
impressive. She was shown seated with Bobo standing at her elbow, both with similar
hairstyles and the regulation three strands of pearls, putting together outfits for future
tours using coloured sketches for the dresses – ‘I think I’d like to keep that one for
Australia.’ Elizabeth fished in a leather box and came up with a startling necklace of
gold set with magnificent pigeon’s egg-size cabochon rubies, formerly belonging to the
‘Persians’, as she called them – presumably the Mogul emperors of India – sent as a
present to Queen Victoria. ‘Rather fascinating,’ she says, using the qualified, understated
‘Windsorspeak’ characteristic of the royal family. Apparently she had never worn this
splendid object. ‘One ought to get a dress designed to wear it with…’ The use of ‘one’ as
a more indirect form of ‘I’ is another feature of royal conversation.
Morning audiences were filmed. The presentation of a gold medal to the poet Robert
Graves was a somewhat awkward occasion. Although Graves was accompanied by the