Qui is responsible for hacking the entire famous report on YouTube Royal Family by Richard Cawston, last aired in 1972? The “hacker” played with the prohibition decreed by the queen, holder of the copyright, to pass a documentary which she considers negative for the image of the royal family.
Not only did the hacker infiltrate the security of the Palace’s computer system and the BBC, but more importantly, he got his hands on the initial one hundred and ten minute uncensored version of a program which had made a landmark in the television history of the monarchy. The original copy shows the Sovereign calling US Ambassador Walter Annenberg a “gorilla”. The monarch is also seen paying with his own pocket for an ice cream intended for his youngest son Edward, saying, “This sticky dirt is going to soil the car.” “In addition, Prince Charles, heir to the throne, waterskiing with his bare chest…
Picnic with pearl necklace
The final version, released in 1969, exalts the simplicity of a royal life by showing the Queen and her family surrounded by their horses and dogs, or cooking sausages on a barbecue in Scotland. The clan with the too distinguished accent, however, appears stiff, antipathetic and totally prisoner, even on vacation, of a rigid and antediluvian protocol. The Sovereign wears a pearl necklace during a family picnic at Balmoral Castle! You never see her eating or drinking.
Elizabeth II has always been aware that the existence of the monarchy depends very much on its public image. This is why the queen had authorized the cameras to film her for a year in her official activities but also in her family life. The small team, which included, besides Cawston, a sound engineer and a cameraman, had freedom of movement. The filming process featured in the series The Crown of Netflix, which makes the reserve of a shy personality, visibly uncomfortable with the intrusion of cameras into his private life.
Seen at the time by two-thirds of the subjects, the gnangnan documentary, stuffed with endless sycophantic platitudes, will never be broadcast again. The public relations operation intended to portray the royal family as they wanted it to be seen did not have the desired effect: to restore the image of an institution which suffered – at the time – from a some languor.
Transparency operation
Why has the film been banned for almost half a century? In the eyes of the Queen, the Windsors must remain a mystery to preserve the magic of the royal institution. Elizabeth II believes that the feature film violates the precepts of the constitutionalist of the XIXe century Walter Bagehot, for whom “mythical respect and religious allegiance are the essential cogs of a true monarchy”. However, despite this failure, the project had marked the first real transparency operation of the Windsors.
In addition, the hidden objective of the film was to obtain a budgetary extension of the royal endowment in order to compensate for the rampant inflation at the time. Given the huge public interest, in the UK and abroad, the government had let go of the purse strings despite a difficult economic situation.
“The film should never have been on YouTube and, as soon as it appeared, the BBC had it removed citing the copyright enjoyed by the Queen,” said a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace. Almost half a century later, the hunt for the “hacker” is launched.
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