1939: HM Queen Elizabeth Calls on Women

Broadcast on Armistice Day in 1939, this message from Queen Elizabeth, consort to HM King George VI, is a tribute to the women of Europe. On behalf of the female population of Britain, she sends her sympathies to the women of Poland and France, who have been among the first to experience the hardships of war. She also commends the fortitude of women who have played an active role on the Home Front, particularly those who have opened their homes to children evacuated from places of "special danger".

HM Queen Elizabeth makes reference here to the feelings she shares with parents all over the country, having been separated from her children due to the outbreak of war. At the time of this broadcast, her daughters Elizabeth and Margaret (aged 13 and nine respectively) were living at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. They spent Christmas 1939 at Sandringham in Norfolk, but within six months they had been moved to the relative safety of Windsor Castle, which would be their home for the remainder of the war.

BBC Archive: Originally broadcast 11 November 1939.