‘I KNOW I AM RUDE...BUT IT'S FUN!'

REMEMBERING THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S WICKED SENSE OF HUMOUR

Although Prince Philip published a number of books, he never planned to write an autobiography. ‘I don’t spend a lot of time looking back,’ he said in an interview on his ninetieth birthday. Consequently, we must build a portrait of him from what he says about himself. ‘I know I am rude,’ he once said. ‘But it’s fun.’

It was Prince Philip’s father-in-law, George VI, who said that the House of Windsor was not a family but a firm. This is a tradition that Philip proudly maintains.

It seems, nonetheless, that he the prince is just as outspoken behind closed doors as he is on the public rostrum. The Queen Mother once asked an official court photographer: ‘And how did you find my son-in-law? Difficult, isn’t he?’

However, he is not a man without sentiment. Recalling meeting his future wife in 1939 when she was thirteen, he said years later: ‘You were so shy. I couldn’t get a word out of you.’ That shyness hasn’t lasted. According to the Queen’s former private secretary, Lord Charteris: ‘It is not unknown for the Queen to tell the duke to shut up.’

Hours before marrying the princess, Prince Philip asked a friend: ‘Am I being very brave or very foolish?’

Reunited with the Queen at the door of Westminster Abbey at the end of the coronation, he observed her crown and asked: ‘Where did you get that hat?’