Prime Minister
… Hospital Radio for the chance to wish you a Very Happy Christmas and as speedy as possible a recovery to full health in the New Year.
We are recording this broadcast a few days before Christmas in one of the staterooms upstairs at No. 10 Downing Street. We have a beautifully decorated tree nearby, partly because this is where we entertain many of our official guests but also because right up until the last minute, No. 10 is where many of us spend the Christmas period. Indeed, we have at least two other Christmas trees at No. 10 this year, one outside the famous front door and one just inside the front hall, so that people get a real Christmas welcome when they come here.
The staterooms, which are really rather grand and very beautiful, are also the scene of our own Christmas party where everyone who works at No. 10—and that is about 80 of us—meet here to sing carols and then have a really good Christmas party. Not only the people working here this year, but all of those who have left us during the past year to go and work elsewhere, they come back, so it is a real lovely Christmas reunion and all of them say that the thing they remember most about No. 10 is the way we get together at this party and sing all of the Christmas carols, nine or ten, and I get together in one corner of the room the people who have the best voices so they can lead the singing.
So you can see that although No. 10 is first and foremost the Prime Minister's office and a place to work, it has a marvellous family feeling for those of us who are privileged to serve here.
You, of course, are celebrating Christmas away from home in what, too, is essentially a place of work. Your people will be working over Christmas Day. There will be some people in No. 10 who are also working over Christmas Day because messages can come in from other countries at any time and yet, as always, I am sure that in hospital everything possible will be done to create the happiest kind of atmosphere in which to enjoy the festivities.
I am very conscious that without all those in the National Health Service who give up their family Christmases, we could not enjoy ours, so at this time of giving I am sure you would wish to join me in saying a very special “thank you” to them, to all who work on Christmas Day for us and a Very Very Happy Christmas to you all and a Good New Year to look forward to.
Happy Christmas!