Speaking from Cape Town on her 21st birthday in 1947, the then Princess Elizabeth vowed her ‘whole life whether it be long or short’ would be devoted to serving Britain

A famous speech that reduced the late Queen Elizabeth II to tears was shockingly left in a pub just weeks before being broadcast to the world.

Speaking from Cape Town on her 21st birthday in 1947, the then-Princess Elizabeth vowed her “whole life whether it be long or short” would be devoted to serving Britain during a rousing speech, which itself became the mantra of the longest-reigning monarch in British history.

But the speech had a much more profound effect on the young Queen than perhaps expected. In 2022, Royal writer Valentine Low said in his book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Throne that the future Queen was brought to tears by the powerful words. And according to the MailOnline, King George VI’s private secretary Alan Lascelles said to her in response: “Good, for if it makes you cry now, it will make 200million other people cry when you deliver it, and that is what we want.”

And in a shocking revelation, a draft of the speech was briefly lost in a bar in Cape Town the month before Elizabeth delivered the broadcast. And luckily, when it was found, Lascelles wrote to Dermot Morrah, the journalist who wrote the speech, to tell him: “The missing letter has now turned up. The steward in the Protea diner had put it in the bar, among his bottles, little knowing that it was itself of premier cru.”

Lascelles also commended the speech, continuing: “I have been reading drafts for many years now, but I cannot recall one that has so completely satisfied me and left me feeling that no single word should be altered. Moreover, dusty cynic though I am, it moved me greatly. It has the trumpet ring of the other Elizabeth’s Tilbury speech, combined with the immortal simplicity of Victoria’s ‘I will be good’.”

The South Africa tour Elizabeth explore the nation for six months, along with her father, mother Queen Elizabeth and sister Princess Margaret. The tour came just two years after the end of the Second World War, at a time when the British Empire was being dismantled.

And Mr Low reveals how Lascelles wrote in his diary how successful the long royal tour had been. He penned: “The most satisfactory feature of the whole visit is the remarkable development of Princess Elizabeth. She has come on in the most surprising way, and all in the right direction. He added how the young Elizabeth had a “good, healthy sense of fun” but could also “take on the old bores with much of her mother’s skill”.

Delivering her speech from Government House in Cape Town, Elizabeth begun by saying: “On my twenty-first birthday I welcome the opportunity to speak to all the peoples of the British Commonwealth and Empire, wherever they live, whatever race they come from, and whatever language they speak.

“Let me begin by saying “thank you” to all the thousands of kind people who have sent me messages of good will. This is a happy day for me; but it is also one that brings serious thoughts, thoughts of life looming ahead with all its challenges and with all its opportunity. At such a time it is a great help to know that there are multitudes of friends all round the world who are thinking of me and who wish me well. I am grateful and I am deeply moved.”

She went on to mention the Second World War, saying: ‘We must not be daunted by the anxieties and hardships that the war has left behind for every nation of our commonwealth. We know that these things are the price we cheerfully undertook to pay for the high honour of standing alone, seven years ago, in defence of the liberty of the world. Let us say with Rupert Brooke: ‘Now God be thanked who has matched us with this hour’.”

But, during the end of the speech Elizabeth famously uttered the emotional words: “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong. But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do: I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.”