21st birthday speech of Princess Elizabeth

Elizabeth had spent the morning of her birthday at Government House in Cape Town after an earlier plan to ascend Table Mountain by cable car was abandoned due to inclement weather.

[3] The speech was made lighter in tone by the King and Queen and Elizabeth alongside Frank Gillard, who was coordinating the BBC's coverage of the tour.

[3] The speech was pre-recorded on 13 April while Elizabeth was at the Victoria Falls Hotel in Southern Rhodesia, on the present day border of Zimbabwe and Zambia.

[1] She asked to speak as the "representative" of the youth of the Commonwealth who had grown up during the Second World War and said it was "surely a great joy to us all to think that we shall be able to take some of the burden off the shoulders of our elders who have fought and worked and suffered to protect our childhood".

[1] Elizabeth then quoted the poet Rupert Brooke ("Now God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour") and William Pitt the Younger ("England had saved herself by her exertions and would save Europe by her example") before saying that "If we all go forward together with an unwavering faith, a high courage, and a quiet heart, we shall be able to make of this ancient Commonwealth which we all love so dearly, an even grander thing-more free, more prosperous, more happy, and a more powerful influence for good in the world-than it has been in the greatest days of our forefathers.

She then spoke of the motto "Ich dien" ("I Serve") saying that "These words were an inspiration to many bygone heirs to the throne when they made their knightly dedication as they came to manhood.

[1][4] Elizabeth's biographer, Matthew Dennison, believed that the speech was a "poetic precursor" to the oath she subsequently delivered at her coronation.