| Main Performers | Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
Mr Winant (American Ambassador),
Celia Johnson,
James McKechnie,
Leo Genn,
Henry Oscar,
John Laurie,
Michael Standing - speakers |
| Secondary Performers | Malcolm McEachern,
Swales Atkinson - vocals
Shulamith Shafir - piano,
Arnold Greir - organ |
| Orchestra or Band | London Symphony Orchestra,
Scots Guards' Band |
| Conductors | John Barbirolli,
Captain S Rhodes |
| Set List | 'The Star-Spangled Banner',
'Symphony No.2', Randall Thompson,
'Plain Chant for America', William Grant Still (Swales Atkinson),
'Piano Concerto' (1st Movt), Arthur Bliss (Shulamith Shafir),
'Ballad for Americans', Earl Robinson (Malcolm McEachern),
'We Joined The Navy!', Irving Berlin,
'My Country 'Tis of Thee',
'God Save the King' (The National Anthem) |
| Performance Notes | A 30 foot by 20 foot portrait of Abraham Lincoln hung in front of the organ underneath were the words, '...and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.' The flags of 48 American States were carried by American Soldiers into the auditorium and held at the back of the orchestra throughout the performance. This was likely to be the first time in the United Kingdom that all 48 American State flags had ever been displayed together before.
The speeches of the Prime Minister and Mr Winant were broadcast by the BBC in the Home Service in addition to a large part of the celebration from 20:00-21:00.
The Prime Minister was accompanied by Mrs Churchill and Miss Mary Churchill in the Royal Box alongside Mr Winant, Mr Attlee (Deputy Prime Minister) and Mrs Attlee, Mr Eden (Foreign Secretary), Mr Brendan Bracken (Minister of Information), Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, First Sea Lord and Lady Cunningham, Viscount Simon (Lord Chancellor), and Viscountess Simon, Field-Marshal Sir Alan Brooke (Chief of of the Imperial General Staff), and Lady Brooke, and Marshal of the RAF, Sir Charles Portal (Chief of the Air Staff), and Lady Portal.
Churchill was received by Viscount Camrose and Marshal of the RAF Viscount Trenchard, President of the American and British Commonwealth Association.
Winston Churchill's speech:
"We have come here tonight to add our celebration to those which are going forward all over the world, wherever allied troops are fighting in bivouacs and dugouts, on battlefields, on the high seas, and the highest air. Always this annual festival has been dear to the hearts of the American people. Always there has been that desire for thanksgiving, and never, I think, has there been more justification, more compulsive need than now.
It is your Day of Thanksgiving, and when we feel the truth of the facts which are before us, that in three or four years the peaceful, peace - loving people of the United Sates, with all the variety and freedom of their life in such contrast to the iron discipline which has governed many other communities - when we see that in three or four years the United Sates has in sober fact become the greatest military, naval, and air power in the world - that, I say to you in this time of war, is itself a subject for profound thanksgiving.
We are moving forward in this struggle which spreads over all the lands and all the oceans; we are moving forward surely steadily, irresistibly, and perhaps with God's aid, swiftly towards victorious peace. There again is a fitting reason for thanksgiving.
I have spoken of American thanksgiving. Tonight here, representatives of vaster audiences and greater forces moving outside this hall, it is British and American thanksgiving that we may celebrate today. And why is that? It is because under the compulsion of mysterious and all-powerful destiny we are together. We are joined together, shedding our blood side by side, struggling for the same ideals, and joined together until the triumph of the great causes which we serve has been made manifest.
But there is a greater Thanksgiving Day which still shines ahead, which beckons the bold and loyal and warm-hearted, and that is when this union of action which has been forced upon us by our common hatred of tyranny, which we have maintained during these dark and fearful days, shall become a lasting union of sympathy and good-feeling and loyalty and hope between all the British and American peoples, wherever they may dwell. Then indeed, there will be a Day of Thanksgiving, and one in which all the world will share."
(The Times, 24 November 1944) |
| Related Archival Material | Programme (RAHE/1/1944/97),
Ticket (RAHE/8/5/1944/1) |