« Terrible Beauty | Main | Know Thyself, know thy colours »
December 30, 2009
King George finally does it
In December, 1939, King George VI did something he'd never done before; he gave a 'King's Speech' over the radio.
His father George V had started the tradition in 1932. But on suceeding him, his son George felt it was too much his father's thing for him to attempt to replicate it. And so for three years, it was dropped; there was no King's speech.
But in 1939, with war looming, and uncertainty in the air, King George VI felt the moment was right to revive it. To do so, he had to overcome a stammer he'd had from childhood. But determined, he sat down in a studio in Sandringham, and spoke to the nation.
The speech is perhaps now best remembered for the words with which he closed. They were wriiten in 1908 by Minnie Lousie Haskins as an introduction to her war poem, 'The Desert'.
These were the words:
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.'
Posted by Mr Bojangles at December 30, 2009 09:54 AM