Queen Uses Speech To Hail UK Ebola Medics
Her Majesty says she has been "deeply touched by the selflessness of medical volunteers who have gone abroad to help victims".
By Enda Brady, Sky News Correspondent
The Queen will use her Christmas message to pay tribute to medical staff who have volunteered to fight Ebola in west Africa, saying she has been "deeply touched" by their "selflessness".
Dozens of British doctors and nurses have travelled to countries like Sierra Leone to help combat the deadly epidemic.
In her Christmas message, which will be broadcast at 3pm, the Queen will say: "I have been deeply touched this year by the selflessness of aid workers and medical volunteers who have gone abroad to help victims of conflict or of diseases like Ebola, often at great personal risk."
The theme of this year's message is reconciliation and on the 100th anniversary of the Christmas Day truce in the World War One trenches, the Queen also touches on how she felt visiting the ceramic poppies at the Tower of London.
The monarch and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the installation by artist Paul Cummins in October.
She said: "The ceramic poppies at the Tower of London drew millions and the only possible reaction to walking among them was silence.
"For every poppy, a life - and a reminder of the grief of loved ones left behind."
A total of 888,246 ceramic poppies were planted in the moat at the Tower, one for each British and Commonwealth death.
The Queen recorded her message sitting next to a table featuring separate photographs of her grandparents, King George V and Queen Mary.
Also present is an embossed box similar to those sent to soldiers on the frontline in 1914.
The Queen made her first Christmas broadcast in 1952, live on the radio from her study at Sandringham.
Her first televised message came five years later and she has only missed one year, 1969, when she decided the royals had featured enough on TV after an unprecedented documentary.
Source: http://news.sky.com/story/1397352/queen-uses-speech-to-hail-uk-ebola-medics
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