Queen: Expert reveals why 1969 documentary was banned

The fly-on-the-wall documentary about the royals from 1969 recently resurfaced in full on YouTube before being swiftly removed. Express.co.uk asked readers if the Queen should allow the BBC programme to be broadcast once again.

But the poll divided opinion, with 51 percent saying no compared to 47 percent in favour. One percent did not know.

Commenting on this website, one reader said: “It is up to the Queen to make that decision and for the people to respect her wishes.”

Another wrote: “If the Queen and Royal Family do not want the 1969 documentary to be shown, then it shouldn’t be.

“I saw it in 1969 when it was first on TV and again when it was repeated years later, it was very good. It was real, unlike the awful Netflix Crown.”

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A third commented: “Perhaps it would tell a better story and show a better picture than that awful Crown.”

Another said: “No, like everyone else, the Royal Family have the right to some privacy.”

A fifth added: “It is best to have a little mystery about them. They give the UK a huge advantage.”

One more wrote: “YouTube will need to keep busy – it is back up and people are linking to it all over the internet.

“She may as well now allow the BBC/ITV to air it as the cat is now out of the bag and once something appears on YouTube, even when taken down, it reappears again and again and again. Different people copy it and then put it up.”

Our poll comes after royal fans were able to view the entire 105-minute programme on YouTube for the first time this week since it was pulled in the early 1970s.

The groundbreaking documentary offered the first insight into the domestic life of the Windsors.

The Queen was shown enjoying a family picnic at Balmoral, where a kilted Prince Philip cooked sausages on a barbeque.

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A bare-chested Prince Charles was filmed waterskiing.

And footage captured the monarch buying a young Prince Edward an ice cream with money from her own purse, before saying: “This disgusting gooey mess is going to be in the car, isn’t it?”

The documentary, which was shot in colour, followed the royals for a year and was watched by millions of people.

It was made in a bid to highlight their “ordinary” side as they were viewed as becoming increasingly remote in the sixties.

But just a few years after it was broadcast it was locked in the BBC archives – a move believed to have been made at the request of the Queen.

Clips have been used over the years in other documentaries but the entire programme has not been screened since the ban.

The full footage resurfaced on YouTube earlier this month and is thought to have been seen thousands of times before its deletion.

Express.co.uk polled 2,432 people from January 29-30.

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