Prince Philip at 90 - Part 2

[Music] it was in Malta that the Duke of Edinburgh assumed command of the frigate HMS magire Prince Phillip now a leftenant commander in the Royal Navy took up a post in Malta the princess stayed with him there for extended periods and they were briefly able to enjoy life almost like any other young married couple visiting the local shops dining with friends and going out dancing but I think that was probably the nearest time to a a sort of relaxed rather normal life that um certainly the princess experienced being a AAL wife I think something she really did enjoy and value and was probably quite helpful for her all too soon Royal duties were to intrude then came their Royal highnesses setting out on the great tour of Australia and New Zealand they are taking the places of the king and queen who would have gone but for his Majesty's illness their first stop was Kenya while there a report claimed that the king had died Phillip took Elizabeth out and kept the news from her until it could be confirmed later that day he had to tell her that her father was dead I should think devastating because I mean from the moment the queen stepped down those steps I can see that picture can't you see her now coming down those steps that was it she foot touched the ground that was it the princess had come home as Queen everything was to change for Prince philli too I think one of the worst things that that happened to him was the very early death of the king because he had a very good career he was mapping it out for himself he had seen his uncle heading towards the top of the Navy and he was at that stage of his life head of his family Prince Charles princess an were already born in a sense all that is over and he then has to take on a supporting role to the queen how difficult was it to relinquish it when the queen acceded to the throne well I mean how long's a piece of string I don't know how how difficult it was it well well it was naturally disappointing because i' just been promoted to Commander and in fact most interesting part of a naval career was just starting but then equally if I stopped and thought about it well um the the being married to the queen it seemed to me that my first Duty was to to serve her in the best way I could the peers of the realm including Prince philli are already in their places I remember idiotic things about the coronation and getting you know dressed up before breakfast in all one's finery which was very rather extraordinary some of the pears kept sandwiches in their coronat so that you know because of course you couldn't see what was under the top of the Coronet and when there was an interval nothing was happening the coronets would be taken off and the sandwiches would be eaten first her husband Philip Duke of Ed become your lead man of Life Rising touches the crown upon her head Queen Elizabeth as consort from this day forward Prince Philip's primary role became one of supporting and serving the queen [Applause] there are no hard and fast rules about a consort's role Prince Albert had a desk beside Queen Victoria and helped her with Affairs of state but Winston Churchill and the Old Guard at the palace discouraged the young Queen from following this example leaving Prince philli to carve out a role for himself he has measured out his life in handshakes yes he he has been the leader of 847 different organizations going from regiments to small Charities from design groups to people involved in sport from things involving disability to the worldwide fund for nature a vast array of material from literally clocks to bicycles naturally a lot of excitement when Prince Phillip as patron of the London Federation of boys clubs went on around of visits he went to not only did Prince philli lend his name and effort to existing organizations he soon initiated some of his own what was the Genesis what made you want to create the Duke of edinburgh's award scheme I didn't want to create it um it was Kurt H came along one day he sent for me and I went to see him at Brown's to tell which he was who to there he said my boy I want you to start an award scheme I said thanks very much and because we had a a badge scheme Gordon if you qualified in one throwing one running and one jumping you've got sort of badge thing I said well look I can't start it but if you put together at some a committee of the Great and the good I'm perfectly happy to chair it which is what happened now in its 55th year the award embodies the twin beliefs that underpinned gordonston the value of physical activity and service to the community I think the reason it's it's stuck is that there are new generations every year here who are confronted by a completely Strange World and and very little opportunity to find out what it's all about so if you can give them a sort of temp or sort of I don't know template whatever to which they can discover what what what life's life and that's so it's always relevant because there's always a new generation coming up for it London South Bank exhibition is ready to show the world what Britain can do we've done wonders since the war now we're blowing our own trumpet for a change one enduring focus of Prince Phillip's interest has been in the area of design I suppose it all started at the festival of RIT uh when I got involved with that and a suddenly it had my eyes open to the way people did things and designed things and the sort of concept of of but that time 1951 Festival of Britain you recall that as being a moment when well I think that's when I got in I got involved with people like Steven Gooden and hu Casten and and and they were all very I mean it was it was it was hey stuff as far as I concerned because I mean while I was in the Navy I didn't meet people like that Prince philli soon found an opportunity to put his interest in design into practice a new Royal yacht I name the ship brania I wish success to her and to all who sail in her oddly enough the the first involvement was with the the general sort of design of the ship because the chap in the admiralty was given the task of Designing her this CH was a civil servant who really didn't know whereas I'd been at Sea and I and I knew both ships and what happened the prince engaged the services of designer hu cast and worked with him to create a vessel which became both an ambassador for Britain and the Royal Family's home away from home it's a room which can be converted into a cinema and this is where films are projected stat room the keyot having somewhere like the Royal yot to leave your baggage to have your office to be able to do so much of your entertaining took an enormous amount of pressure off my parents was as children it was a joy painly I don't ever remember being ill on board but I must have been cuz seems lightly certainly remember the efforts put in by the sailors who were there to look after us so each of us had a sort of Sailor attendant to stop us either flinging ourselves overboard or getting lost seemed to work quite well they were very good at it how important was fatherhood to you compared with being the Queen's consort was it something you were conscious of a role you were conscious of fulfilling no well I mean I just I was father are you a father I am would you think about it in philosophical I worried a lot about the prospect of it when the children were coming along yes so said die but you worry about the children themselves but uh had a sort of routine yes I during the day we'd always see them at the same time and then we always made sure that we were at home either here or at b or san during the holidays was a family um just rather surprisingly hear my children say that they thought I was had been quite a good mother and I think I would say that that was Spades to my father he set an extraordinary example he put some work into it he made efforts to be there and particularly I think on a regular basis at bedtime that degree of continuity when you're not going to be around all the time that there are some periods when you need to have continuity and that was one of them and that was one which could make make a real impact and bedtime stories are things that you know children don't get so much noway but was very important in my day and again it was still a period when families made their own play so you did everything together and if that was chasing games or C game and they both partook and they were both very quick I seen from from chasing [Music] games well there's not much use for anything here today oh I F on there I love it I once asked him about his relationship with Prince Charles I said it's interesting that you know you seem so similar in many ways you know you walk the same way you talk the same way you share interests in young people in conservation in the Arts and yet I feel that maybe you don't get on as well as you might and he interrupted me before I got to that and he said but there is a difference and the difference is this Prince Charles is a romantic and I'm a pragmatist and sometimes a romantic thinks that a pragmatist is unfeeling that's the way it is towards the end of 1956 the Duke took Britannia on a tour of the Commonwealth and the Antarctic his 3month absence gave rise to Media speculation that all was not well in the Royal marriage he is actually sent out to go on a mission to test Britannia take it to parts of the Commonwealth that would be never visited by senior Royal before and he goes on this Expedition and then the Press say oh he's abandoned the queen what's wrong with their marriage you know I think his despairing about the British press began in the 1950s with that the queen took the unusual step of defending her husband's absence in her Christmas broadcast if my husband cannot be at home on Christmas Day I could not wish for a better reason than that he should be traveling in other parts of the Commonwealth and he has been to places I have never seen do you read about yourself in the Press not that I can help it no Do You Think You Are misrepresented by your sense of humor or your attitude to life no not consistently occasionally is far from the eyes of the world's press the artist Edward SEO joined the Duke on his tour of the Antarctic SEO I know gave you a lot of instruction on painting was that when it began on the Royal yard no it began here but and not by SEO and SEO couldn't instruct anybody he I had to say well how do you do it he said you do it like this it's exactly asking a a country how do you get the rabbit out of a hat he said he was how do you do it you do it like this and so you had to sit there and watch and see whether you could derive anything but he was very useful in in other aspects for instance in what colors to put on your palette what how to prepare your board and how you know all sorts of little practical things so very helpful It's Curious I mean um I'm a very bad judge of the pictures because I judge them on the basis of whether I enjoyed painting them or not but when you show them to other people they'll pick kind something else and say well I like that I think will why would you like that I you killed me trying to do that one why did you try this one I love doing that after 43 years service the Royal yacht Britannia was decommissioned in 1997 she hasn't been replaced what were your feelings when the Royal YT was decommissioned sad do you think was the right thing to do no what do you think should have happened Ian what she ought to have had is simply had her steam turbines taken out and diesel engines put in would take half them out of so she was a sound of bell and she would have gone on for another 50 years as consort Prince Phillip has had responsibility for running the Queen's private Estates at balm moral and Sandringham his attention to detail extends into unexpected Ed areas this is the picnic trailer um built in 1994 the D always asked for it's got to be practical uh it must not rattle or be noisy and it's got to be efficient for when he uses it great isn't it oh look at this oh this is everybody's dream this is all the his own spice racks liquor baskets racks so how much of this Danny is you and how much is the Duke um there's always a bit bit of a competition with a dick V and myself of who comes up with the best idea everything had its own little slot and little place I was really stuck for doing one engineering project and uh he came in one evening he said uh have you thought of anything I said no I just can't I said I'm going to have to think about that in the bath sir he came back the next morning looking quite pleased to himself got out of the Land Rover came to the workshop Danny yes your o highness I know how to do it so he said what do you think of that I said I don't really know I said I said be a good idea if that was my idea [Laughter] though what made you want to design a barbecue well I went to the Olympic Games in in Helsinki in 1952 and the the um Canadian Ambassador invited me to a barbecue I never even heard of the things and and he had this sort of open fire with a grill threw lumps of meat on it I thought I can do that came went back to Balor and got one of these fire grills and put it over some bricks and think and and did some steak on it everybody seemed to think it was all right so it sort of progressed from there Danny mentioned to you that Duke Evra has barbecues and this is one of his spots where he would barbecue and all the equipment that's on top of the picnic trailer would be brought out here what does he cook well mainly game that's shot on the venison feasant Partridge Woodcock teal so very self sustaining then absolutely not a burger or a kebab in sight not at all occasionally a sausage morning sir what up since giving up Polo in the early 1970s Carriage driving has been the Duke's sporting passion at 90 he no longer competes but he still drives whenever he can Prince Phillip holds the Reigns of the world's most famous family firmly in his hands and has had to steer them through sometimes difficult obstacles none more so than those encountered in the Queen's Infamous Anis horribilis 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure it has turned out to be an anus or Rous a terrible fire at which Windsor Castle destroyed more than 100 rooms and caused almost 40 million worth of damage this room wasn't involved fire stopped at the halfway through that room no the the so this is so the the fire then got as far as Prince Phillip spearheaded the restoration and took action to raise the money needed so we opened bucking PS to raise the money and and also reorganized collecting money here just oh Lord is that locked too locked us into this place well would you want to SC back the other way I think this is where the fire started of the of the old chapel and the chapel was that's the door into the St George's Hall the fire exposed previous alterations to the castle so Prince philli was able to restore some areas to their medieval State and to make improvements of his own and so I found that we we could create this because there was this space here by moving the chapel over there so you got this entrance to the to the St George's Hall which I thought was an improvement well see open up and I'll get that closed off this private Chapel isn't open to the public the thing is that the the architectural structure allowed for this to be moved to this position and there was a little passageway through here and and I just noticed this goes is over a door and I thought if we could fit this into this section we could make that into an octagon yeah we thought we put in a window and so I thought why not have the fire the bottom part as you sort of tribute to the firefighters and these are the people uh you know rescuing all the pictures in and I thought it' be fun to put smoke sort of turning into trees with a parcel emerging at the [Music] top at the time of the fire another Royal crisis was brewing Prince Charles and Princess Diana's marriage was in trouble there was a time with the Princess of Wales when he was a accused of having written a letter in which he he was meant to have said that she was a harlot something like this so I was asked to come into Bing Palace and read the correspondence between Prince philli and the Princess of Wales and I hope one day that that correspondence will be published in full because it was extremely moving and interesting on both sides and he made a very determined effort to find any way that he could keep that marriage going he shared with her quite a lot of his own experiences of what it was like marrying into to the family and how he too understood what she was going through to some extent I don't think many other members of the family would have done the same thing while not officially involved in matters of State it's clear that Prince philippus played a key role behind the scenes as the longest serving consort in the history of the British Monarchy all too often I fear Prince Philip has had to listen to me speaking frequently we have discussed my intended speech beforehand and as you will imagine his views have been expressed in a forthright manner he is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years and I and his whole family and this and many other countries owe him a debt gr greater than he would ever claim or we shall ever know [Music] I suppose for all of us as we evolved as individuals and started to do our own things then there are certain constraints of um this existence and particularly his and being closer to the Monarch which we all found more difficult to manage and wanted to do things our own way and that's when you begin to appreciate just how how difficult it must have been been and particularly if you somebody with so many ideas you know like the idea of change this is not a life which is designed to do much of that and certainly not very rapidly members of the royal family now Princess Anne the Princess Royal Princess Margaret on the right some of the Royal Family's most private moments have had to be played out in public and the Duke is The Man Behind The Throne offering guidance to its younger members but as I know there's a very good relationship between Prince William and his grandparents of course there the time when the Princess of Wales was killed um at one point Prince William wasn't terribly Keen to walk in the funeral procession and indeed the night before I think hadn't entirely made up his mind whether he was going to do that or not because he thought that the whole thing was sort of Mia Shenanigans and Prince philli said to him I think that when you're older you would very much regret not walking behind your mother's coffin and I'll walk with you and there's also a moment during the funeral procession when they go under whiteall when they presumably think the cameras aren't on them and you see Prince philli sort of tapping on the shoulders if say how's it going you know to my mind that's all you ever need to know about Prince Phillip it has been an a unique position the one that you found yourself well there been several people previous ones there Prince Albert and Prince George when you look back at it is there anything you would have done differently that's hypothetical but interesting well yes I'd rather not made M mistakes that I did make yeah but no I'm not going tell you what they [Music] are at 90 and 25 years past the official age of retir Prince philli is finally relinquishing a few of his duties but it's certain he'll never renounce The Vow he made to his Queen almost 60 years ago to be her Le man of life and limb

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Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2011