Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas message: 2019 has been ‘quite bumpy’

The 93-year-old monarch’s speech also reflected on the heroism of British forces during the D-Day landings in Normandy

Experts said the queen’s use of the word ‘bumpy’ marked her most explicit admission of turmoil since her description of 1992 as an ‘annus horribilis’

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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:29pm, 24 Dec 2019Updated: 7:31pm, 24 Dec 2019

Queen Elizabeth called 2019 “quite bumpy” in a Christmas message at the end of a chaotic year, which saw Britain bitterly divided over its split from the European Union and her scandal-plagued son Prince Andrew withdraw from public life.

But in some good news on Tuesday, the 93-year-old monarch’s husband Prince Philip checked out of a London hospital after four nights of treatment for an undisclosed “pre-existing condition” in time to join the royal family for Christmas.

The year was filled with disappointments for the queen – a seminal figure in British public life who assumed the throne in 1952 and is beloved by much of the nation.

None may have been more bitter than a calamitous BBC interview in which her second son Andrew tried to distance himself from American paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew promised to “step back from public duties” after his denial of having sex with one of Epstein’s alleged victims was ridiculed in the UK media and reportedly criticised in Buckingham Palace.