1932- "Christmas Message To The Empire, 1932"

.....This first entry is actually a spoken word piece, but one with a strange pedigree.

• 03:06 "CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO THE EMPIRE, 1932" (Rudyard Kipling)
• performed by His Majesty King George V (of England)
• original source: BBC Empire Service broadcast, 25th December, 1932
• commercial debut: 10"[78RPM] His Master's Voice R.B.S. 4359(UK) 01/33 [one-sided]
• and my source: CD THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PAST Living Era ASV Ltd. CDAJA5178 (UK) 1995

.....The liner notes for the CD suggest that this item's catalog number is OB 4598-3, which I can't find listed on any website. I did find one auction house which described their copy as having a matrix number OB 4398 IIIIT3, so there may simply be a typo somewhere.

.....The BBC had been broadcasting domestically since 1927 when the Empire Service (today known as the World Service, I believe) commenced in December 1932. This would broadcast to member countries of the United Kingdom all over the globe. The participation of the King early on would inspire confidence in the ambitious project and Christmas or New Year's Day would seem the ideal special occasion to provide the maximum audience. The text of the address was provided by Rudyard Kipling:

....."Through one of the marvels of modern science, I am enabled this Christmas day to speak to all my peoples throughout the Empire. I take it as a good omen that wireless should have reached its present perfection at a time when the Empire has been linked in closer union, for it offers us immense possibilities to make that union closer still. It may be that our future will lay upon us more than one stern test. Our past will have taught us how to meet it unshaken. For the present, the work to which we are all equally bound is to arrive at a reasoned tranquility within our borders, to regain prosperity without self-seeking and to carry with us those whom the burden of past years has disheartened or overborne. My life's aim has been to serve, as I might, towards those ends. Your loyalty, your confidence in me has been my abundant reward. I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all. To men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert or the sea that only voices out of the air can reach them; to those cut off from fuller life by blindness, sickness or infirmity; and to those who are celebrating this day with their children and their grandchildren; to all, to each I wish a happy Christmas. God Bless You."

.....Records pressed of the recorded speech were sold after the New Year to benefit the "Wireless For The Blind Fund". George V made one more Christmas address in 1935. Both he and Kipling died the following year. Although successors to the crown continued the tradition of a Christmas radio address almost annually, not all were released commercially. The story behind the 1936 delivery begins with the motion picture "The King's Speech", soon to be in theaters.