It was our darkest hour. France had fallen and the Blitz rained fire from the skies. That’s when Churchill asked 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth to address the nation’s children – with a radio broadcast so touching it has echoed down the decades…

• It was on this day, October 13, that Queen Elizabeth made her first broadcast
• She movingly recalled her words 80 years later at the height of COVID-19 
• For all the latest Royal news, pictures and videos click here

Sunday October 13, 1940. France had fallen and, with the autumn light fading, the Battle of Britain still raged above the southern counties.

Just a few weeks earlier, the Blitz started raining fire from the skies and long queues of child refugees now formed at the stations. The threat of invasion was real.

This was the moment that 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth was asked to speak to the   the nation and its children – and in particular those who were being sent sent to safety in the countryside far away from home.

A 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth delivered her very first public address to Britain’s evacuee children on October 13, 1940

Elizabeth was asked by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to give a morale boost to children separated from their families and sent to the countryside

Broadcast from the drawing room of Windsor Castle as part of the BBC’s Children’s Hour, this was Princess Elizabeth’s first appearance on the radio – and her first public statement of any sort. Ten-year-old Margaret Rose was by her side.

‘Thousands of you in this country have had to leave your homes and be separated from your fathers and mothers,’ said the future Queen. 

‘My sister Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you, as we know from experience what it means to be away from those you love most of all.

‘To you living in new surroundings, we send a message of true sympathy and at the same time we would like to thank the kind people who have welcomed you to their homes in the country.’

The two princesses had themselves been moved to safety from Buckingham Palace, where they had lived since 1937 and their father’s accession to the throne, to Windsor Castle 20 miles away.

The government had urged the Queen mother to leave for Canada with her daughters but she refused, saying, ‘The children won’t go without me. I won’t leave without the King. And the King will never leave.’

With the disaster of Dunkirk still fresh in the memory, this was the period that Churchill would later describe as our darkest hour. 

Now he had asked Elizabeth, the future queen, to help lift national morale and, in particular, to address the plight of those children apart from their families.

READ MORE: How the Queen’s sense of duty was cemented during the war: Her Majesty was evacuated to Windsor Castle aged 13 where she gave her first public address and put on a pantomime to raise spirits

Over the six years of the war, more than two million children were sent to the countryside  in a programme the military called Operation Pied Piper. 

Closing the broadcast, Elizabeth introduced her younger sister, saying: ‘My sister is by my side and we are both going to say good night to you. Come on, Margaret.’

Margaret added: ‘Good night, children,’ before Elizabeth said: ‘Good night, and good luck to you all.’

The speech was considered a huge success and this broadcast marked the beginning of a regular series of features aimed child evacuees. 

King George VI, had been reluctant to put his daughter on air, but was delighted with the result.

In another moving speech to the nation, almost eight decades later in April 2020, the Queen recalled that first broadcast, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic reminded her of the separation felt during the war.

‘We, as children, spoke from here at Windsor to children who had been evacuated from their homes and sent away for their own safet

‘Today, once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones.

‘But now, as then, we know, deep down, that it is the right thing to do.’

Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth, the future monarch, sat side-by-side with her sister, then known to the nation as Princess Margaret Rose, to address the children of Britain and the Commonwealth

More than two million children were sent to the countryside, many wearing name tags around their necks in a programme the military called Operation Pied Piper

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