The first televised Christmas message

ON DECEMBER 25, 1957, the Queen made her first televised Christmas message from the Long Library at Sandringham. Ever since her Accession, the Queen had resisted appearing on TV on Christmas Day on the grounds that most of the Commonwealth did not possess sets — and also because she did want to allow the ‘paraphernalia’ of TV production to interrupt her own family celebration. But radio ratings had dipped and she accepted the inevitable. In the official picture of the broadcast (right), framed pictures of Charles and Anne are visible on her desk — otherwise the two images are remarkably similar.