Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen uses material from 400 reels of footage and 60 of the Queen’s speeches to bring her early years to vivid life
The Queen has opened her own home video archive to the nation, echoing grandparents everywhere to say she hopes the next generation will not only find it interesting but remember that she too was “young once”.
Remarkable footage of the Queen as she has never been seen before will be aired for the first time in honour of the Platinum Jubilee, capturing the “fun behind the formality” of life in the Royal family.
The BBC documentary titled Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen uses the best never-before-seen material from 400 reels of film footage and 60 of the Queen’s speeches to bring Her Majesty’s early years to vivid life, from the first moving image of her as a baby to the high jinks of childhood holidays at Balmoral.
The Queen was so taken with the concept of the film, she agreed to record her own thoughts to introduce it, explaining how the Royal family captured their private lives on camera not just for the historic record, but for their own pleasure.
“Cameras have always been a part of our lives,” she said, in an audio message recorded at Windsor Castle on May 19.
“I think there’s a difference to watching a home-movie when you know who it is on the other side of the lens, holding the camera. It adds to the sense of intimacy.
“Like many families, my parents wanted to keep a record of our precious moments together.”
Referring to her life with Prince Philip and their four children, she added: “And when it was our turn with our own family, we did the same. I always enjoyed capturing family moments.
“Private photos can often show the fun behind the formality.
“I expect just about every family has a collection of photographs or films that were once regularly looked at to recall precious moments but which, over time, are replaced by newer images and more recent memories.
“You always hope that future generations will find them interesting, and perhaps be surprised that you too were young once.”
The footage begins with the earliest moments of Princess Elizabeth’s life, being pushed in a pram in 1926 wearing a baby bonnet.
Later, she is seen riding a tricycle and examining the flowers as a toddler, while her pipe-smoking father George VI joins the fun, and playing with Princess Margaret holding tea parties and pulling funny faces.
As they get older, Elizabeth and Margaret perform a carefully choreographed dance, bounce in the heather at Balmoral, and bask in the sun on HMS Vanguard during their 1947 tour to South Africa.
At almost all times, George VI and Queen Elizabeth are seen at the very heart of warm family life.
Prince Philip, too, is captured in his element, with his all-action appearances in swimming pools and on water skis matched by moving scenes of the newlyweds in private in the corridors of Buckingham Palace.
The Queen’s two older children take something of a starring role, with Prince Charles filmed learning to use a spoon in his high chair and marching around in dungarees, and a spirited Princess Anne giggling, throwing her rattle aside and trying to eat pebbles at the shore of a loch.
Edward VIII is seen in happier times, playing the bagpipes while his young nieces dance and arm-in-arm with his brother Bertie, before footage including Wallis Simpson shows him announcing his abdication.
The Duke of Kent, who died on active duty in the Second World War, is filmed helping Elizabeth ride a Shetland pony, before she expresses her condolences at his death saying “he was always so kind to us”. It is believed to be the only surviving footage of the pair together.
Remarkably, the programme has been given permission to use the last film taken by the Princess before she became Queen, of wildlife in Kenya very shortly before she learned of the death of her beloved father.
Claire Popplewell, the creative director of BBC Studios Events Productions, said the film particularly “demonstrates the love and fondness Her Majesty’s father, King George VI, had for his daughters Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret”.
“There’s a scene of him playing football and doing rough and tumble with the two Princesses as very young children that is particularly touching,” she said. “And like all families, they like to play up to the camera.
“I think you get a real sense of the family’s traditions and rituals: little things like successive generations wheeling small children around on wicker garden sun loungers.”
The 75-minute programme will be broadcast on BBC One on Sunday May 29 at 7.45pm.
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