By SAM GREENHILL

Last updated at 00:01 22 December 2006

The Queen will urge respect for the elderly and a need to "guide the young" in her Christmas speech this year.

Her December 25 message will stress the importance of a strong relationship between the generations.

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And as if to prove her own youthful credentials, the Queen is making her speech available to download as a podcast.

It means that, for the first time, her subjects will be able to watch and listen to her traditional 3pm broadcast on their iPods, MP3 players or mobile phones.

A download can be ordered free in advance from the Monarchy's website, www.royal.gov.uk.

Subscribers will automatically receive the podcast on Christmas Day at 3pm, when the Queen's address is aired across the Commonwealth.

There is also a "click and play" option to watch the speech online.

The Queen's theme this year is to highlight a need to steer young people away from trouble and towards more positive roles in life, while also teaching them to respect their elders.

She believes it is a message that has long been taught by religion and should be picked up by society as a whole.

She will say: "The wisdom and experience of the great religions point to the need to nurture and guide the young, and to encourage respect for the elderly."

Buckingham Palace described the speech as highlighting "what old and young have to offer each other, and how all faiths highlight the need to nurture and guide young people."

It was filmed at Southwark Cathedral in London. In a preview, the Queen, wearing a spring green outfit, is shown chatting to schoolchildren as she helps them make a triptych collage of a nativity scene.

"It should twinkle rather well shouldn't it...especially when the lights are on it," the Queen tells them.

One of the youngsters remarks, as the Queen adds a piece of the mosaic to baby Jesus's halo, that it "looks brilliant".

The rest of her message, which was produced by ITN, remains confidential until it is aired on Christmas Day.

When she turned 80 in April this year, the Queen was described by one of her friends as "taking a leaf out of her mother's book - the older she gets, the more she likes being surrounded by young people".

She has also recorded a separate radio message for the Armed Services and their families. It will be played to troops both in the UK and on postings overseas early on Christmas Eve morning.

King George V delivered the first royal Christmas broadcast live on the radio more than 70 years ago, from Sandringham in 1932. He read a message composed by author Rudyard Kipling.

The original idea was suggested by Sir John Reith, the founding father of the BBC, to inaugurate the Empire Service, now the BBC World Service.

George V was at first unsure about using the relatively untried medium of the wireless, but eventually agreed.

Now his granddaughter, the Queen, is also adopting the latest technology as she makes her message available as a podcast.

She made her first Christmas broadcast in 1952 and the annual message was first televised in 1957.

She has delivered one every year except in 1969, when she decided the royals had been on TV enough that year following an unprecedented documentary the family made about their life. Her greeting took the form of a written address.

The Queen's Speech was traditionally produced by the BBC for more than 50 years but the job has been shared with ITN on an alternating basis since 1997.

When Buckingham Palace decided to end the BBC's monopoly, it was seen as retaliation for its Panorama interview with the Princess of Wales in November 1995, which was not sanctioned by Buckingham Palace.

The palace denied that a slight was intended and said that it had been considering for some time how to involve the ITV network as well as the BBC.

Last year the Queen praised the humanitarian response shown to those affected by the London suicide bombings and the devastating earthquake in Pakistan and India.

Since 1993, Channel 4 has delivered its alternative Christmas message - clashing with the Queen's.

This year it will controversially feature a Muslim woman speaking from behind a full veil.

The programme makers had to find a replacement after the original woman, Khadija Ravat, backed out following criticism from inside and outside her community. The replacement is not being named by the channel until the broadcast.