my grandfather s admiration and respect for the crown doing its duty in a country under great pressure was probably the most important thing in his entire life. it was just completely mad. it was joyous. and everybody was singing and dancing. george broadcast the victory speech to the nation that evening that my grandfather listened to. at this hour, when the dreadful shadow of war has passed far from our house and homes my grandfather makes notations in his diary that the king sounded weary and tired.
lighthearted person, but there was rather steel in there, actually. queen elizabeth projects this public image which is warm, comforting, lovely. george vi was shy. he didn t like public attention, not like her. and at the same time, she is intent on projecting a public image of the ideal family group, as opposed to edward and wallis simpson, who are childless. in private, queen elizabeth is preparing her eldest daughter, also named elizabeth, for her future role. overnight, the abdication made the 10-year-old princess heir to the british throne. her mother sees the royal job as a practical job. she teaches elizabeth how to converse with dignitaries and conduct royal duties. princess elizabeth was quite
i think that must have been the best two years of their lives. of course, she had to come back to reality. back to england. sympathetic routes with the palace, waiting for news. he was to undergo a mediate surgery. he needed to have an operation for the removal of one of his lungs. the king had lung cancer. the operation itself seems to be successful. the king and his convinces himself he is getting better. even though george feels he is on the mend, there is a trip that he has been planning to do. he is not up to it. he asked princess elizabeth and prince philip to go instead. met five days after his daughter arrives in kenya, at home at the age of just 56, the
king dies. princess elizabeth is already the queen the moment her father dies thousands of miles away. they had to get the message to her before the news is announced on the radio. communications in 1952 are very, very difficult. the palace sends out a coded message to communicate. there is a problem. the code had to be deciphered and nobody had the code big. the palace thinks elizabeth will be told. the palace tells the world. they tell the world that elizabeth doesn t know. her private secretary is in the local town when he hears that the king has died. at this point, it is unconfirmed. she was in a room at the time. on the radio. they went in and took the radio out of the room.
appeared. that it can be given up easily. so george s challenge is basically to restore the monarchy to something like the stability that it had before his brother sat on the throne. so it s absolutely crucial for george that the coronation is a success and that he is launched, successfully, as a monarch. but insecurities plague the new king. one of george s biggest worries is he suffers from a stutter. for him, talking in public is torture. in the modern newsreel age, the british public expects both to see and hear their monarch. now, the british monarchy is under a lot of scrutiny. so the monarch has to be comfortable in the role of communicator. i think he felt the pressure