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The Royal Family remain an obsession for millions and millions of people around the globe, for reasons I cannot understand.
Harry and Meghan are keen to escape it all, and I can’t say I blame them, and Netflix’s The Crown has only brought closer scrutiny to the lives of the royals.
Fans of the show might remember a scene from the third season, when the family shot a BBC doccie about their lives, which aired in 1969.
Titled Royal Family, cameras followed the Queen and her brethren for a full year, but then, without much explanation, the doccie simply stopped airing.
It was widely reported that the Queen banned the doccie, as she regretted opening her house to the cameras, with the footage stashed in the BBC’s archives.
Prince Anne was also said to be unhappy with the film, saying she “always thought it was a rotten idea”.
Now that doccie is back, having been mysteriously leaked and uploaded to YouTube, although the original account that posted Royal Family has since had it taken down.
Via Harper’s BAZAAR, more on the doccie:
“Viewers got to see [the queen] awakened every morning by the sound of bagpipes—something that continues to this day at Windsor, or wherever she is staying.”
The film also documented Prince Edward learning to read, trips on the Royal Train, a family barbecue at Balmoral in Scotland, and a visit from President Richard Nixon.
That’s the more official take, but Huff Post has a rundown of some “shocking moments”.
Queen Elizabeth refers to someone as a “gorilla”
“It’s extremely difficult to keep a straight face when the home secretary said to me, ‘There’s a gorilla coming in,’” the queen says. “So I said, you know, ‘What an extraordinary remark to make – very unkind — about anybody.’
I stood in the middle of the room and pressed the bell, and the doors opened and there was a gorilla. And I had the most terrible trouble in keeping — you know, he had a short body and long arms. And I had the most appalling trouble.”
Some outlets have speculated that the queen was referring to a U.S. ambassador, all of whom have been white. But the term “gorilla” can be a racial slur when used to describe Black people. In this case, there are no indications, either in the queen’s remarks or elsewhere in the documentary, to specify whom the home secretary was talking about. Both Buckingham Palace and the BBC declined to comment on the scene.
Prince Philip jokes about Alcoholics Anonymous
Prince Philip, whose reputation for offensive and off-color remarks precedes him, is shown speaking with someone at a reception, where he asks them if their tie is “Alcoholics Anonymous.”
News is delivered daily to the royal yacht by helicopter
“For people in the public eye, a ship at sea has a certain type of privacy,” the narrator says while introducing people to the family’s royal yacht. But, as the narrator so hilariously puts it, “out of sea does not mean out of touch,” before footage shows a helicopter delivering the day’s papers to the royal yacht.
Take that, commoners.
You can see the rest of that list here, if you aren’t ready for the main event.
Various YouTube channels currently have the documentary uploaded, although it seems likely some may be taken down.
For that reason, we have put three options below:
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