The Queen Unseen - British Royal Documentary

the queen is the most famous woman in the world celebrated and admired and yet as she reaches her 95th birthday she remains and see the private queen who has always sacrificed self for crown and duty you really see her like this this is uh so happy this is just so happy i love that picture we examine what her personal passions reveal about her true character you look actually her love of corgis why pick a breed that is naughty and cheeky unless that amuses you and i think it does and hear intimate stories from those closest to her i used to know the queen when she was a little girl and we used to play and we always thought she was going to tell us off which he did the queen is by nature quite a shy person this is our queen as she's never been seen before into the forecourt of the palace and through the gates comes the gilded coach two centuries old bearing the young queen to her crown suddenly we knew she was coming i mean we'd hear this roar getting louder and louder and louder so exciting and then round the corner came this golden coat out she got and she just looked dazzling in june 1953 elizabeth windsor was about to become the most famous woman in the world she was just 27. lady anne glenn connor was one of her maids of honor we were there standing the train ripping over our hands and then she suddenly turned and she said ready girls the coronation was televised a radical decision at the time and watched by more than 30 million people but the most important moment of the ceremony was hidden beneath the canopy the tv cameras forbidden from showing it it is the moment of the anointing the halloween a moment so old history can scarcely go deep enough to contain it she gave herself to the commonwealth and to the nation but also to god and the anointing was a holy moment once anointed elizabeth was transformed into majesty to be queen for the rest of her life and then suddenly there she was queen it's a metamorphosis it was it was extraordinary she was a different person emerging from the coronation than she had been before this ceremony had taken place from this moment elizabeth windsor the private woman would be hidden behind the mask of monarchy always putting duty before family himself tonight by delving into unseen archive and hearing intimate stories from those who know her or reveal the real elizabeth when she arrived back at the viking palace all four of us were waiting again to help her out of the coat and that was the moment that she took off the crown then we got to a sofa roll like this and she sat in the middle and we sat either side and she sort of put her legs up like that like that i said we all did the same and it was such a and she just you know she's laughing and then we went which is fantastic we went on the balcony the image of the newly crowned elizabeth ii alongside her family is iconic but it's only now with the help from expert lip readers that we can clearly see the young queen already juggling her private and public roles [Music] caring attentive mother and ruler of half the world from this day on it would become increasingly rare to catch a glimpse of the real elizabeth behind the crown the woman the mother the wife only a few years earlier elizabeth's life had been very different as she and philip enjoyed carefree married life captured here on this rare film shot in canada in 1951. she was a young mother two young children and they're having this really very happy existence princesses but she could go dancing she could go to polo matches she had no expectation that suddenly the king was going to die the devastating death of her father george vi in 1952 changed everything for the young elizabeth the way not just being queen of britain queen of a large part of the earth's surface suddenly all these burdens fall upon you [Music] the new queen had little time to get used to the role and just five months after the coronation she left with prince philip on an extensive tour of the commonwealth in the great white ship riding at anchor royal as a swan is the queen we have never seen the tour would take her away from her two young children for six months and as the young elizabeth took her first tentative steps on the world stage she asked for her travels to be filmed so she could show them to charles and anne on her return much of this footage has never been shown in britain until now and the endless faces laughing in the sun suddenly there was this incredibly glamorous youthful couple who looked as good as any film stars and there they were in front of you going past in a car an amazing tour the tour was a defining experience for the queen even as she began to shape her public persona she realized that every aspect of her life would now be scrutinized no matter how private the level of hysteria simply couldn't believe it there was one tiny town where the queen traveled through and afterwards there was a cue around the block at the local hotel because a loo had been set aside for royal uses and everybody wanted a piece of royal blue paper it had to be rationed out of one sheet per person queen visited 12 countries with the second leg of the tour taking her to new zealand this remarkable amateur footage hasn't been seen for almost 70 years [Music] the royal train complete with feather beds became home from home for the queen and phillip taking them to 46 towns and cities it's nothing more moving both for the queen and her people during this strenuous tour then the queen's pauses in the small places the whistle stops in spite of the punishing schedule the queen strived to maintain the mask of sovereign but behind the cameras the tour took its toll queen is by nature quite a shy person her temperament is on the side of being reserved of being holding back slightly [Music] she felt that she had a smile all the time she couldn't smile all the time nobody can smile all the time she said to a friend that when she wasn't smiling she looked cross and she said i'm not cross but i look cross and indeed one journalist said she looked bored she was tired and exhausted obviously she had to enjoy it she had to be seen to enjoy it so constantly trying to smile the pressure must have been absolutely exhausting well she certainly did find many of these dignitaries that she had to meet and she said boring boring boring the queen did have one key ally in the fight against boredom this unseen archive reveals how from the earliest days prince philip has been an invaluable source of support philip looking at the sheep being sheared with a broad smile across his face and obviously being thinking there's a great joke going on philip has come to rescue her when he's seen her sort of looking rather bored and not taking part in the conversation and then you can see her looking at phillip she looks adoringly at him actually he's her pillar he's her rock philip was able to break the ice and cause a kind of thought in the formality that surrounded the queen [Music] in a private unseen home movie we get a rare glimpse of the young queen off duty taking a short break from the grueling tool the couple stayed with new zealand's governor general so will it be nori whose wife filmed the visit well it was terribly exciting to have the whole royal party staying in your home sarah stevenson nori's daughter was 10 at the time and got a glimpse of the real elizabeth there was one time actually when my sister and i were taking our dogs for a walk the queen saw us and said that she wished he could come with us [Music] the royal couple stayed for christmas spending the day relaxing with the family father christmas is approaching with lots of presents for prince charles and princess anne who were very young and they were in england so it must be very difficult for the queen and the duke to leave their children behind for such a long trip my parents gave the queen of the duke of christmas stocking each and in the queen's stocking there was a dog lead and in the duke stocking there was a blue and white redwood ashtray and my father said the duke of the please because he's got his wife's head on it and he thought that was terribly funny [Music] christmas in new zealand falls in the summer and that afternoon the royal party went to the pool to relax this was a private pool we took the royal party to on christmas day there's my father with the queen that's johnny although who's later earl spencer father of princess diana and he was the queen's equity for that visit now the duke of edinburgh is trying to get on this lilo and he has to have several attempts the royal couples knew that we were filming and they didn't seem to mind that we were and the queen also had an identical camera to my mother she was also taking similar shots that was the queen's smile which my mother very cleverly caught great fun the commonwealth tool was an enormous success so we take out their wealth and loyalty devotion and pride become merged into one but back in britain not everyone was won over by the new queen's public image i'm quite sure this needed to say it's a sort of synthetic creature that speaks not queen as she really is and she was to face increasing pressure [Music] in the early years of her reign the young queen inspired by her beloved father was establishing herself behind the traditional mask of duty and service but britain in the 1950s was changing and this formal public persona is now being seen in some quarters as a weakness i'm glad too to be able to thank once again our hosts all around the globe a magazine article criticizing the queen caused a sensation the author was tory peer lord altringham altriam wrote the personality conveyed by the utterances which are put into her mouth is that of a british schoolgirl i am very glad to have this opportunity of inspecting the 5th battalion and of addressing you before it is disbanded her own natural self is not allowed to come through it's a sort of synthetic creature that speaks not the queen as she really is at the time there was genuine anger towards altering them was a slap in the face insult to her personally but there were also those who agreed that the queen was too remote and aristocratic the queen was very keen to reign in the image of her father she adored her father always in her mind as well what would daddy have done to begin with the court ran along very similar lines and the court was run by pretty old chaps and people began to start asking well this is a post-war britain we can't just have a cord somehow ossify that's sort of stuck in the edwardian era this home movie however shows a very different private elizabeth filmed in the scottish isles at the time of altering them's attack it reveals a relaxed elizabeth holidaying with her young family a world away from her public persona it is the first time lady glenn connor has seen it well here they come it's lovely prince charles and my mother she wearing dark glasses she said love going on the boat lady glenn connor was a childhood friend of elizabeth and lady in waiting to princess margaret now they're now all on the beach making sandcastles it's always funny because when the queen is there everybody who normally would never make a fan castle suddenly that's the most favorite thing they want to do you know here they are bathing everybody's freezing water my god must be co the film gives a rare view of a casual queen enjoying the outdoors and cooking at a family barbecue [Music] queen is very practical you see the queen looks so relaxed with them all and they're having such a good time there were no appointments she could get up when she liked wear what she liked all the family were there and that simply didn't happen anywhere else off-duty elizabeth is seen as a relaxed fun mother but seen in public with her children the queen's adherence to strict royal protocols left the impression of a cold distant parent this footage shows three-year-old prince charles waiting at houston station for his mother and father to return from a month-long tour abroad [Music] prince charles arrives with the queen mother at the station he's obviously very excited [Music] so how do the queen and prince philip greet the welcoming party obviously with lots of kisses the queen on the other hand simply gives charles a peck on the top of his head so the whole thing is extremely hedged around by royal requirements it's rather chilly and cold it's extremely distant i think it must have been very difficult for her to take on all the responsibilities of being queen and have as much time as she might have wished for prince charles and princess anne the queen's childhood was very different this newly discovered film shot by a friend of the windsors captures elizabeth's idyllic early life aged seven she's seen here with her parents and sister margaret at royal lodge windsor it's lovely the king looks so happy but if he wasn't king there he's pretending the cup princess elizabeth's hair with these shares they sound so natural and happy oh there's a cottage there's the welsh cottage that the people of wales gave princess liza princess margaret rose and they absolutely adored it it was the most wonderful present it was at the height of the children i mean they could easily get in the night the queen a mother used squash in there too just three years after this film was made their easygoing family life ended abruptly when edward viii abdicated placing the burden of monarchy on the shoulders of father and daughter and the king i think always said is a very famous thing he said us for and they were very much us for it's love lovely lovely film as a young queen and a mother elizabeth had to carefully navigate the demands of children and the crown she had to be seen the whole of the commonwealth wanted to see her this unseen footage from 1959 captures a radiant elizabeth newly pregnant with her third child at the start of a six-week tour of north america eleven-year-old charles and eight-year-old anne remained at home when the queen discovered that she was pregnant with andrew she was incredibly happy she was she was delighted i think having this huge gap between her second and third babies the queen very much did want more children but understanding the nature of her role she knew that that would be too much to handle when prince andrew was born in february 1960 the queen was determined to spend more time with her children at belmoral there was a queen's baby for the first time in a hundred years and his brother and sister enjoyed taking him out in the pram and in 1964 when her youngest child edward was born the queen was far more assertive in making the job work around the family she does things like altering her schedule of the the time of her regular meeting with the prime minister so that she would have time to go and play with the babies and put them to bed i mean this was something that she wouldn't have dreamt of doing at the time when she became queen she's become much more confident and her confidence in her role as queen allows her to do these things and to give priority to her children in a way monarchy had sort of started to grow up they knew where they were the queen knew who she was and there was more time for motherhood now in her forties and more confident as both monarch and mother the queen began to allow more photocalls of a less formal nature these films aired only in cinemas at the time revealed the queen and prince philip to be hands-on caring parents she responds to members of the public who write in saying that we want to see more of your family all of these images begin to appear so we get now a sense of the queen as a family woman as a woman with a young family on holiday in scotland i think phillip had an enormous amount of time for them i think he taught them lots of useful things like to fish and to sail yes there's prince andrew this queen looking very loving at them sweet [Music] and he wish i could lip read [Music] the press and the public loved seeing the real queen and they wanted more and in 1969 they got their wish television was on the rise and prince philip persuaded his wife to allow cameras into their home television now had unfettered access to the queen's private life for a documentary called royal family i can remember seeing it back in 1969 it showed the queen it showed the royal family as human beings royal family was a hit watched by 350 million people [Music] these scenes of ordinary family life like the queen and five-year-old edward were more revealing than anything shown before [Music] what really stuck in people's minds was things like the royal family having a barbecue on their highland holiday balmoral and prince philip and princess anna flipping the burgers while the queen makes the salad dressing the public loved this glimpse of the real queen but within the palace there was unease courtiers were desperate not to let the proverbial sunlight in on it you know desperate not to diminish the mystique the standard is ready in 1977 the film was withdrawn reportedly the queen felt she'd shown too much of her private life never again would she allow such access to her family there was a sense that they were letting a genie out of the bottle and they couldn't put it back in again that they had changed the nature of the relationship between the royal family and the press and the television and this wasn't necessarily a good thing they couldn't control it they'd lost control once the public had seen behind the scenes and the curtain had been pulled back there was an insatiable demand for more this unseen canadian film of the royal family on britannia shows the continuing struggle to maintain clear boundaries with the press keeping them at bay prince andrew bounded down the gangplank to meet his brothers prince charles gave some friendly advice to young edward be careful about talking when reporters are around there's an unwritten rule that microphones never get close enough to record the royal family's private comments even that rule was sometimes great he must have run out of film the queen has quite strict boundaries about how far she's prepared to go the public is allowed to see her but only on her own terms in an age of mass media the queen rarely shows her true self but if you know where to look there are clues to the real elizabeth some are hidden because phillips feels like a driver and she said to john we're all husbands for you don't they someone's surprising there's a very innocent lovely childlike joy at winning a rosette or a tesco's voucher for fifty pounds and some are hiding in plain sight [Music] away from the scrutiny of public life there is one place where the queen can take off the mask of duty a place where she can drop her guard and be herself she's a natural country woman and someone who is happier in the countryside than in town i think the queen has always loved the freedom of riding the excitement of it the chance to escape you know royal photographer arthur edwards has spent 20 years snapping the queen he's captured her love of animals and her competitive spirit every year i go to the derby hoping [Music] of course looks like she said a winner this is 1991 to win the gold cup and this the reaction of her majesty the queen and john warren going berserk beside her in there but estimate really sticks her little head out and says this is mine it was clear from probably a furlong out that estimate was going to win that's real excitement that's that's raw emotion that's genuine you know the [Music] at the delight there the sheer joy magnificent scenes the crowd seeing that as well on the big screen in her own back garden the queen attends the royal windsor horse show and this unseen footage reveals what a down-to-earth owner she is if one of her ponies is in line for a rosette she's right in there there's a very innocent lovely childlike joy at winning a rosette or a case voucher for 50 pounds which happened a couple of years ago in a retraining of racehorses class and honestly you'd have thought that the queen had you know won a well i've won the lottery i mean it was brilliant horses are a lifelong passion that she shares with her husband duke of edinburgh has always loved his polo and his carriage driving prince charles always loved his polo princess anne went to the olympics that's a very high achieving equestrian family the queen also owns over a quarter of a million acres of farmland but her interest in livestock stretches around the world and new zealand is home to one of the queen's dairy herds it's co-owned by warren ferguson this here is one of the cows that's owned by her majesty she'd know about rose she'd know about the the older cows when we go to a show if we win or we take one of those cows dad would ring the queen up and tell what she'd won or what we'd won yeah warren's late father don met the queen at an agricultural show in britain in 1975. [Music] in 1990 the queen was in new zealand and insisted on a detour to otta rohonga to see her old friend don and her cows the ferguson shot this home movie yeah they had quite a walk in the paddock really they did yes don was so proud wasn't he oh yes and they just seemed to get on well together it's like when she's down the paddock once with him and because phillip swears like a trooper and she said to john were all husbands for you don't they i don't know what don replied because donny was small or very seldom coming from different worlds the queen and don enjoyed a friendship that lasted for 40 years until his death in 2017. dad he loved farming he loved his cattle and his family pretty straight up and down and i think that's probably held him and steed with this friendship with the queen the queen has loved the countryside and animals all her life but it's her famous corgis that give us real insight into her character [Music] packing on palace windsor castle sandringham wherever it might be if the corgis are around the queen's not far behind the faithful corgis travel with her everywhere caught on film over the years by heathrow's airport cameraman now this is the corgis heading off to balmoral and it's so funny i mean if this was a carry-on film you would believe it as a sketch but this is real and i love it because you'll get protection officers or household staff in charge of making sure the corgis have a little pee and maybe a poo before they get on the plane [Music] and they're quite snappy little things they're very vocal they're very independent so quite difficult to discipline and that makes me laugh because i think the queen rather enjoys that come on the queen has owned 30 corgis over the years and this playful intelligent breed are part of her iconic image no there are things like the corgis that have been a constant in the queen's life and i think that the kind of peripatetic life that the queen has always led things that remain constant are incredibly important she likes constancy in the same way that throughout her range he's been a constant for us the people [Music] the elizabeth windsor seen relaxing here with her corgis seems a country mile away from her formal public image it's one woman in two personas you know it's the other side of the coin you've got the woman flip it over you've got the sovereign mr president i am delighted to welcome you to buckingham palace the queen regularly plays host to the most important world leaders charming one and all she's learnt to be in public life without it bothering her she's very straightforward to deal with and i think foreign leaders find that with her they're always surprised that despite the aura of majesty she's an easy person to talk to mr speaker her majesty queen elizabeth ii his royal highness the duke of edinburgh she absolutely loves these these big trips you know she really feels you know this is this is what i'm for you know i'm she's representing her country on the world stage she's very good at it i do hope you can see me today from where you are the queen has traveled over a million miles making her the most traveled ruler in history at the height of the cold war she became the first british monarch to visit a communist country meeting president tito in belgrade in 1972 with philip by her side that was a great trip president tito was coming up to his 80th birthday and the one visitor he was absolutely desperate to get was the queen and uh and she came and he he simply loved it this footage reveals the queen charming this communist leader with characteristic warmth and humor so there is actually behind that serious countenance someone with a very lively sense of humor she can be very animated and can enjoy the humor of the banana skin or whatever it may be oh my goodness she's eating i think that's an orange now you don't often see the queen eating [Music] she even offers marshall tito a segment of orange britain absolutely has been well served by by the queen in terms of her mastery of diplomacy the absence of slip-ups i mean she just looks so good the queen has learnt to exercise soft power brilliantly throughout her reign so for example when president reagan comes they go out riding on a horse together and she completely charms him queen elizabeth ii is the longest reigning monarch britain has ever had and throughout her reign her greatest success has been with her own people walking the dogs going to the races pleasuring family lovely long walks i think there's a there is a marvelous um sense in which she embodies the best of british when she walks into a room she doesn't immediately gravitate towards the general with a great deal of brass on his on his chest plate she tends to go from somebody in the room who's perhaps much more modestly placed i think sometimes people are a little surprised to know just how down to earth the queen is as a person and and how totally natural she is the people's queen and she relates to everybody and um anybody but in 1997 the people's queen faced the greatest challenge of her reign just to confirm the news that diana princess of wales has died in a car accident press association uh announced with a news flash at 4 41 that's just a few minutes ago that diana princess of wales died has confirmed that diana princess of wales is dead the nation in shock looked to the queen to lead them in their mourning but the queen was silent the royal family stayed in balmoral and no royal announcement was forthcoming those closest to the queen feel her silence has been misinterpreted she was sharing her emotion by being with william and harry and have she felt her role was to be with them at balmoral as monarch it's rather important not to be showing emotion the whole time you're there as a figurehead you're there as a leader and you don't necessarily want to be showing a lot of different emotions the queen's ability to separate her public and private lives has been one of her greatest strengths but in this moment of crisis it became her greatest weakness the queen's reserve and fortitude was perceived as cold and unfeeling by a shocked and grieving public very very very disgraced when i find their behavior very disgraceful what do you think madam i think it's disgusting that they have not appeared or said a word people wanted i think they wanted a response from their head of state i think people wanted to focus their grief on something to steady the nation the queen would now have to take an unprecedented step to remove the mask of monarchy and show her emotions [Music] throughout her reign the queen has always been steadfast hiding her private feelings behind the mask of public duty but in the aftermath of princess diana's death her silence and stoicism were seen as remote and aloof [Music] when the queen and prince philip did return to buckingham palace they stopped their car unexpectedly to speak to mourners an hour later the queen would break her silence to give an unprecedented address showing a side of herself never seen before since last sunday's dreadful news we have seen throughout britain and around the world an overwhelming expression of sadness of diana's death [Music] there's something very very reassuring about hearing her speak a very very powerful moment it is not easy to express a sense of loss since the initial shock is often succeeded by a mixture of other feelings disbelief incomprehension anger and concern for those who remain it was a speech like no other she talks about her emotions really as a woman rather than as head of state we have all felt those emotions in these last few days so what i say to you now as your queen and as a grandmother i say from my heart there was something about the way the queen addressed the nation and spoke both as the queen and as a grandmother which really let the light into the sort of human side which is very strong and it was the turning point that was something that we hadn't really seen before and the queen's ability to deal with that and to deal with the disconnect between her public and private selves basically retrieves the situation soon after princess diana's funeral rural photographer arthur edwards spoke to the queen i said to the queen uh i thought your uh your talk to the nation about diana was magnificent i said i was in a pub and she said in a pub i said yes ma'am i said the whole pub went quiet and watched you i said so amazing i said and you know to do it live like that so it was just tremendous and the face lit up i don't think many people told her how well she'd done but it was a brilliant brilliant brilliant address to the nation by revealing her private emotions like never before the queen had once again steadied the nation but as she entered the fifth decade of her reign the queen was to face further challenges the late most high most mighty queen dowager and queen mother from personal loss to allegations against family members albeit denied sir and most recently harry and megan's decision to step back from royal duties as they struggled with intense press scrutiny you can't have that same level of privacy and i think some members of the royal family find that quite difficult and i think that was made kind of very clear by by prince harry and uh and megan that they found this level of of attention rather more than they wanted for young royals having to negotiate trying to a balance between the the private and the public in the time of social media it's much much harder for them i think in a way um than it was for the queen the queen would have felt upset at the time that that was their decision but she's a huge realist that she knows that things go wrong in families that there are setbacks and she tends to deal with them very much in her stride [Music] when harry and megan publicly criticized life in the royal family the queen issued a statement which said the mata will be addressed by the family privately once again the queen had drawn a line between the public and the private there's an expression which was elizabeth the first motto which is semper erdem always the same and i think always the same applies to elizabeth ii as she turns 95 the queen is preparing the next generation of royals for their life of service [Music] this one was taken on the balcony at buckingham palace and there's prince charles who will be our next king and william will be the king after that and the queen's wave into the crowds and she's looking at william with such love in her eyes almost saying well you know one day it'll be you here william doing this that's a nice picture [Music] when prince charles succeeds to the throne or when prince william does the new king will find that he's got the same problem that queen elizabeth has always had how do you balance being ordinary and extraordinary for future monarchs there can be no better example than the queen steadfast but able to adapt to an ever-changing world but in the end all will be well my sister is by my side and we are both going to say good night to you come on margaret good night children good night and good luck to you all from the moment she became queen elizabeth windsor put duty first hiding her private self [Music] we still don't really know what she's really thinking about things what makes her tick what her inner thoughts are [Music] and that really is one of her greatest strengths that she has managed to keep us guessing and keep us interested all this time [Music] for almost seven decades she has maintained the mystique of majesty rarely revealing the real woman [Music] and i feel that she has been the most wonderful queen she's a figurehead i feel so proud to have her as my queen elizabeth our queen [Music] you

Channel: British Documentary

Views: 152,651

Rating: 4.8665113 out of 5

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Id: gNuQDvgzmjk

Length: 46min 6sec (2766 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021