I don't normally watch the Queen's broadcasts. I can't remember seeing her annual Christmas Day Afternoon Message since the 'Annus Horribilis' year, 1992. But this time...well, it felt like an historic moment, and for that reason alone I ought to watch and listen with close attention.
And there were other, personal, reasons.
# The Queen came to the throne in the year I was born, 1952. She has always been in the background of my life, but with her reign synchronised in this particular way. That has made her special.
# I now possess Dad's 1977 Queen's Jubilee Medal, for which he went to Buckingham Palace. He was nominated for it because of his outstanding service. I am proud to display this in my home.
# In 2006 I organised a Message from the Queen for Mum and Dad, who were going to celebrate their 60th (Diamond) Wedding Anniversary. It was all very formal and particular, involving the local Head Postmaster. Mum and Dad were thrilled to get it. (That anniversary was one of their last hoorays. They both died in 2009)
Now, with not just the Nation, but the whole world threatened, it seemed right to see what the Queen had to say. But I wanted to look at her, as a real person growing very old, and not just as a national symbol. I was highly conscious of getting older myself; but she was of my parents' generation, and twenty-six years older still. She was ninety-three. How would she come across?
I took the following pictures standing up in front of my steam TV, little Leica held at my waist, my right thumb on the shutter button. If I'd had a modern TV, the shots would have been rather better. But they're still good enough as a record to keep.
The Address to the Nation opened with nice shots of Windsor Castle, which was a little confusing because I thought she was self-isolating in Buckingham Palace. Obviously I was mistaken.
Then the camera cut to the Queen in a plain green dress, sitting next to a bowl of miniature red roses on a side-table, with an elegantly furnished and decorated drawing room in the background.
Her expression was controlled, radiating calmness. As she spoke of the efforts being made around the country to combat the virus, and to care for those who had fallen ill, there were cuts to appropriate scenes of activity. For instance, the creation of the 4,000-bed London NHS Nightingale Hospital in the Excel Exhibition Centre in the Docklands:
Gosh, what an awful lot of beds and screens and monitoring equipment!
Scenes also of the Army rendering vital logistical assistance:
Somehow it made you feel that we were in very safe, very well organised hands. That was the obvious intention, of course; but there is little doubt that many mountains have been moved very quickly.
The Queen continued, stressing in simple words that what had been done so far - and the way that the public had pitched in and done its bit - all showed that the Nation's will and spirit to endure, overcome and succeed was not a thing of the past, but a thing of the present too. Yet she herself remained calm and almost impassive while saying all this.
I have to admit that my eyes watered. That began as she spoke about all the tragic deaths, and I couldn't help thinking of Mum and Dad, who, if they were still alive now, would most certainly be rapid victims. She touched a chord there.
Her closing words, looking forward to an end to the present difficulties, and the resumption of the Nation's normal life, also got to me. I did not think it old-fashioned, or inappropriate, when she echoed the title words in Vera Lynn's wartime song, We'll Meet Again. Of course we will.
