A thin voice but a confident tone, free from hesitation.
14-year-old Princess Elizabeth, future Queen of England, gave her very first speech on the BBC on October 13, 1940. A reassuring message that she wanted to send to children, in the midst of World War II, while London suffered an intense bombing campaign from the German air force.
To read also fate of Elizabeth II: proclamation of Charles, national mourning, funeral... the calendar for the next few days
It was alongside her younger sister, Margaret, that Elizabeth II delivered her speech at their family castle in Windsor.
“It will be up to us, the children of today, to make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place”
“To you, who live in a new environment, we send a message of true sympathy and at the same time we would like to thank the kind people who have welcomed you into their homes,” she said in front of the BBC microphone. .
“We know, each one of us, that everything will work out eventually, because God will take care of us and give us victory and peace.
And when peace comes, remember that it will be up to us, the children of today, to make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place,” she predicted.
"The Blitz - a bombing campaign on the United Kingdom by Germany during the Second World War - had forced many children to leave their families as 'evacuees' for safe havens in the countryside and even abroad. 'foreign.
By the end of the war, more than three million people had been evacuated, most of them children, ”says the Royal Family Instagram account in a post marking the 80th anniversary of the speech, in 2020.
