Prince Philip - Secrets In The Bachelor Years - UK Royal Documentary

[Music] prince philip is one of the british monarchy's most controversial figures decidedly old-school and occasionally inappropriate yes he is bruce and he can be abrupt and yes he sometimes says some things which are totally out of order a stark contrast to the modern younger royal family [Music] but before he joined the house of windsor philipp's life was an epic tale of war several people were executed and prince philip's father looked very likely to suffer the same fate illness and tragedy philip's mother was clearly falling into a state of mental decline abandonment his father was living with a mistress in monte carlo and heroism prince spirit probably saved hundreds of lives on his ship by his very very swift action it's a life that dashes from borton mediterranean a royal family running for their lives pretty much as dramatic as you can get to the streets of paris and the school halls of nazi germany well he would have been exposed to all of the doctrine that was being pumped out by the nazis at that time how did this royal survivor come through such extraordinary times having such a troubled childhood he's given the backbone to him to put up with anything good philip's experiences before joining the house of windsor explained his later life service and devotion there was nothing of a home life for him there are some people who have difficult home lives who it drives to work harder and to succeed after 50 years of experience i find there's a great temptation to give advice [Music] turkey in 1922 the greek army is invading its old enemy in a brutal war one of the army's leading figures is the greek prince andrea who has recently become father to baby philip prince philip's father was a major general in the greek army who were invading part of turkey anatolia but there was a huge military setback and and the greek forces had to flee to the coast following the army's humiliating retreat from turkey the pro-monarchy greek government is overthrown and its leaders are held responsible for the disaster in the aftermath of this coup several of the people were caught marshalled and executed including a former prime minister a former foreign minister um several of top generals and when the execution was carried out they all stood incredibly bravely and stared at the firing squad prince philip's father in before phillip um suddenly really the rug is pulled beneath his family's feet phillips father's life is only spared by the court when his cousin the british king george v intervenes somewhat surreptitiously i think george v was was very instrumental in organizing um the the escape from greece of uh his his cousins including philip a babe in arms who was taken onto this uh this ship was of course there was no cot no crib for him and so the sailors engineered uh a cot for him out of old fruit crates it is a dramatic start in life for prince philip born philip andrew in corfu just 18 months earlier in june 1921. he was born on the dining room table in fact a beautiful villa in corfu called monrepo and he was born on the dining room table because the surgeon thought that was the best place for alice to give birth and by all accounts he was a very much wanted and loved young son philip's mother alice is a princess of the german house of battenberg with illustrious british ancestral roots prince philip's mother was princess alice of battenberg and she was born in 1885 in the presence of her great-grandmother queen victoria in windsor castle phillip is the great-great-grandson of queen victoria his parents have royal lineage right back through to the british royal family but also to the greek and danish thrones he was very very well connected and by the time he was born his relations were on practically every throne throughout europe philip's father prince andrea of greece is the brother of the greek king and a full-time soldier the wars between greece and turkey have actually been going on for many many years and the royal family and prince andrea were very much placed into senior positions in the military but military coup following the latest defeat forces the greek royal family into exile philips family including his four older sisters have to flee their homeland this really was pretty much as dramatic as you can get and of course this is now uh you know a royal family really uh running for their lives they were able to smuggle some jewelry in their clothes and some money but very little it's quite a dramatic start to his life he has no recollection of the family fleeing in in 1922 but it had enormous consequences and led to him being a bit of a wandering boy despite their royal connections when the family flees corfu with baby philip they have they are now uh really looking for refuge this was the beginning as opposed to quite a nomadic existence for prince philip they settled in the home of one of his aunts and uncles um at san cle in paris [Music] they basically gave the exiled family a house in which to live and if they needed it they would help them financially their life in paris was fairly stable but of course they were dependent on charity basically and i don't think anybody really likes that very much and the other point is of course that as members of the royal family they felt themselves dispossessed and in a sense pointless they didn't have anything that they could really do but philip's life in paris is happy and stable surrounded by his loving family i think these early years of philip's life were perhaps the happiest of his childhood because it was relatively settled for those years in paris and his father andrea adored him his sisters recalled how the begales of laughter when philip and his father were larking around he was able to be educated his relatives paid for him to have a a good education he was multilingual he speaks as a result of french as well as german but when philip is eight years old his happy family life in paris begins to break down phillips mother alice was clearly very fragile in her emotional psychological health and there's every sense that the kind of trauma of the events in greece and their hasty departure really did put her under a psychological strain no one really knows whether she suffered from bipolar disorder or whether she was in fact paranoid schizophrenic alice felt she communicated with the spiritual world she took to lying on the floor for great periods of time waiting for the spirits to to tell her what she should be doing philip's father prince andrea has his own struggles with life in exile i think that andrea is perhaps unfulfilled because he's had life as a greek royal and then he's a major general in the army and then suddenly he's an exile and i think a middle-aged prince without a role that's difficult alice's growing mental instability had a profound effect on her marriage which maybe had never been that strong but certainly in view of her eccentricities and her her mental breakdown andrea spent less and less time with the family alice's family takes the decision that she needs urgent help [Music] one easter holidays the family had gone to stay with some relations in germany and alice's mother organized for psychiatric doctors into the car and driven off to a secure sanatorium as a result his father then seemed to somewhat abandoned the family barely many sisters were older now and it was just that philip was quite young philip loses first his mother and then his father all before his ninth birthday philip's father ended up living this rather lavish sort of playboy lifestyle in many ways with a mistress moving to monte carlo so quite a different kind of life than the one we've had in greece [Music] philip would see little of either his mother or his father for the rest of his childhood prince as a boy seemed to take all this in his stride he was a very cheerful mischievous practical joker and it didn't seem as though he was especially affected by it i talked to prince philip and he said and i think this is very significant really my mother was ill my father was away so i had to get on with it and that really is what he's done all his life child psychologists would say that he built himself a sort of shell around himself where he could function as this outwardly cheerful person but he didn't want to have people ask him about how he was feeling and that would tend to bring out sort of irritation and anger from him with his parents unable to take care of him phillips family now has to decide where the nine-year-old boy should go decisions that will shape the rest of his life [Music] it's paris in the summer of 1930 and aged just nine philip is coping with distress and upheaval his mother princess alice is committed to an asylum in switzerland and his father prince andrea is in monte carlo with his mistress [Music] you have to think that these formative years for philip must have had a profound effect on his character and i think indeed they did he must have been confused i imagine and probably hurting he must have felt abandoned by his parents the family decides that young philip will live with ellis brother in england george the marquis of milford haven or georgie as he is known is philip's uncle he is a royal navy commander and happily married to nada a former russian aristocrat with two children of their own they had this beautiful house in england in berkshire and basically philip went to live with them and absolutely adored george his uncle philip is warmly welcomed that he would experience prince philip i think very much enjoyed both of their company they were very sort of broad-minded they had what was reputed to be the largest collection of pornography then existing um they sent their son age of 17 he was central brothel in paris to round off his education they were sort of quite out there but their marriage was very strong though there was infidelities that took place in that relationship what he witnessed as a boy was with two people that consumed love and were warned to him philip's whole family though played a role in his upbringing i think he was much loved by the uncle's aunts by his grandmother and had bedrooms in several homes but there would always be lots of planning on where would he go in the school holidays so he must have a lot of his childhood in the 1930s like he was a parcel being moved from place to place in the holidays from country to country some of those holidays are spent in southern germany with his four elder sisters who have all married german aristocrats and it's philip's second eldest sister theodora who suggests a plan that would see philipp's life uprooted once again when prince philip was living with the milford havens some of his sisters were a little bit worried about their sort of bohemian ways and and theodora his second oldest sister was married and his family had started a school called salem asylum was uh a very different kind of school and he was packed off there in his early teenage years which he didn't really want to do philip arrives in germany in the summer of 1933 with hitler and his nazi party now firmly in control 1933 of course is one of the most cataclysmic years in world history because it's the year that hitler comes to power in germany so it seems a strange decision that that should be the year that phillip is sent for two or three terms to boarding school at salem in germany rise of nazism was the backdrop for phillips time spent at this school and indeed a branch of hitler youth was established there for him it was a rather bizarre and retrospectively interesting time he saw a lot of nazi saluting which always struck him as mildly hilarious it reminded him of boys sort of asking permission to go to the lavatory at 12 philip is possibly too young to comprehend the events around him but all four of his sisters and their german aristocrat husbands have allied themselves with the nazi party it's astonishing thing that that six years before britain is a total war with germany they're somebody who's later to marry the princess elizabeth should have been at school in nazi germany philip's family decides that he should leave and finish his education back in britain he would say and has said in in his adult life home where where's home i don't know where home is he had many homes um they were they were very welcoming they looked after him but he was essentially homeless this sense of philip as really without a home without a rudder without a sense himself without a clear identity i think that really marks philip out in his early years but philip finds a spiritual home when it's agreed that he should go to gordon near the highlands of scotland it's a progressive newly established school run by kurt hahn a german academic and friend of philip's sister gordenstein has always been described as a very sort of spartan place very sort of outward bound but actually it very much appealed to prince philip he developed his leadership skills there he was already quite independent but he became i think more so when he was there he did extremely well at the school the school's ethos pushes the boys to be competitive practical and self-reliant and it pushes them hard gordenstein was tough it was exacting it was very physical it wasn't just an experience for the mind it was also one for the body it was about feeling things cold showers waking up early being pushed to the physical limit and i think there philip would have found a sort of distraction perhaps from his emotional pain gordon was was a very very unusual school in its time it wasn't your typical british boarding school it was no eaton or winchester but but it very much was part of molding phillip in the outdoorsy direct person that he became philip embraces the gordenstein regime but the trauma that has marked his life is set to return it was while philip was at gordenstein that there was a family tragedy which profoundly affected him as it did the whole of the family one of his sisters cecile was coming with her husband and children over to the uk for a wedding he was called into his headmaster study to be told that his sister and her husband and her mother-in-law law and her two boys had been killed in this plane crash prince philip on hearing the news didn't break down his sorrows was that of a man but i think in prince philip's case it was a sort of indication of how everything else in his life had hardened him in a way philip is 16 at the time of cecile's death he travels to the funerals at the height of nazi germany prince philip it must have been awful for him to have to know that he'd lost not only his sister but his brother-in-law and his his little nephews the funeral was a sad affair obviously but very strange affair really for him the streets were signed his sister's coffin and he he was this sort of full-on figure in a sort of black overcoat and within a year of losing his sister and her family philip suffers another unexpected bereavement shortly after cecile's death his favorite uncle george milford haven died of bone cancer that's a double tragedy really for philip and you know he had to move on again life was just a one awful event after another really but but he seemed to come through them all and he sort of managed to remain a sort of outwardly cheerful young person philip develops an effective coping strategy to deal with the difficulties he faces the stiff upper lip when he finished at gordenstein philip was very confident and competent uh young man certainly on the outside will never i think ever truly know what when and goes on inside phillips head and his heart because he'd had to with such a difficult upbringing uh have a very iron facade but inside he's always been quite sensitive [Music] the void in philipp's life left by the death of his uncle is soon filled by george's younger brother lord louis mountbatten who will become highly influential in the course of philip's lord louis life the younger brother really did take a lead in his life um and he was a great mentor mumback was a real doer he was somebody who had great ambition great talent great networking one of the first bits of advice philip takes from his uncle tikki as manhattan is known is to follow him into the royal navy after leaving gordenstein in 1939 of course the outbreak of war philip enrolls in the royal navy college at dartmouth and it is a royal visit to the college that summer that would change the course of philip's life completely prince philip begins his training at dartmouth's royal naval college in may 1939 four months before the outbreak of world war ii i think age 18 he's already a very very self-sufficient man these difficulties which have befallen him have toughened him up he has the advantage of being devastatingly good looking he's very very blonde in those early pictures and already he's become a bit of a magnet for for young women the young cadets charms are on full display when the royal family visits the academy in july his uncle dickey mountbatten arranges for philip to entertain the princesses elizabeth and margaret they played a few games over the nets and suggested they they do the same by all accounts sir elizabeth was smitten she wrote to philip to thank him for looking after her and margaret and then philip wrote back it was his cousin she was a good contact to have she was eventually going to be queen of england so philip isn't a fool so they started sending letters to each other but elizabeth is only 13 years old too young for any serious romantic interest besides philip has other things on his mind less than six weeks after that fateful meeting britain declares war on germany we tried again and again to prevent this war and for the sake of peace we put up with a lot of things happening which ought not to have happened philip of course could have joined the the greek navy he was he was still a prince of greece and one of the heirs to the greek throne and i think increasingly in the late 1930s phillip felt that he was english he thought he was british so it was the royal navy that he was going to be in at the beginning of the second world war in early 1940 philip is sent to sea at first to the indian ocean to escort convoys of soldiers but the young midshipman is eager to be in the thick of the action by the following year he gets his wish he's transferred to a battleship in the mediterranean to join the fight against the italian navy there was one particular battle the battle of matapan which really saw the end of the italian involvement the italians took such a pasting and prince philip was in charge of the searchlights during a night engagement two or three italian ships were were destroyed in quick succession with prince philip directing the searchlight so effectively that these italian ships were well illuminated and promptly destroyed nineteen-year-old philip skill with the searchlight earns him an official commendation and he is honored with the greek war cross philip is proving to be a first-rate seaman and by the age of 21 he has been promoted to first lieutenant second in command of his ship hms wallis in july 1943 his leadership abilities are put at the test when the wallace is targeted by german bombers as soon as the sort of first round had finished they went away you know princeton knew that they would be back to finish them off and he had to come up with something pretty quick and he prepared a raft with other officers and they lit um burning torches flares at the end of the raft with smoke coming out and they they set the raft off and sailed very very quickly completely dark in the other direction when the german planes returned thankfully instead of bombing lives on his ship by his very very swift action as he rises through the naval ranks phillips also growing close to princess elizabeth he did find time frequently to to write to elizabeth and there was an occasion or two during the war when he had leave that he would go and stay at windsor castle philip spends christmas of 1943 with the royal family it's soon clear the 17 year old princess is falling for the 22 year old naval officer she was excited by him he was very different from the very proper prim aristocrats that her mother would want her to be associated with he was a bit of a rebel and she felt that he was a bit of a catch she fell desperately in love with him she thought he was marvelous he was a war hero he was good-looking he was kind he just everything she'd ever wanted but philip isn't so sure elizabeth is right for him after all marrying the future queen would mean committing to a lifetime of public duty but whispers about philip and elizabeth are beginning to spread helped by his uncle mountbatten by the time philip returns from his war service in early 1946 he seems to have made up his mind i think if you're sick then mine to the greek throne if you've only got about um 600 pounds in the bank if you haven't got a settled home of your own the chance of marrying the very attractive intelligent bright sparky air to to the most prestigious monarchy in the world i don't think that's a terrible opportunity i think he only started to fall in love with elizabeth about 1946 when the king started to warm to him and he was invited to more and more family events he began to see the advantages of what was in front of him but also the genuine affection would then develop with elizabeth winning elizabeth's heart proves relatively easy but winning over her parents and their courtiers is a different matter when someone realized that prince philip was a serious prospect for princess elizabeth there really was panic in the british establishment he was not at all the type they expected and there's a lot of distrust of him in the royal household in the royal family in the government philip is seen as an outsider someone who didn't go to the right schools doesn't have any money and is far too outspoken to be a true british gentleman philip was from a foreign royal family he had been brought up in sort of military ways he was really penniless in terms of his upbringing he'd lived this kind of nomadic childhood he had a very unstable dysfunctional family and certainly some courtiers thought that he really wasn't appropriate for a royal i suppose they viewed him as a little rough and ready maybe bruce maybe over confident certainly her views were expressed that he might not be the right person nobody approved of him at all but elizabeth for the first time in her life she really really stuck her heels in this was the man she wanted and no other would do to become a more suitable candidate for the princess's hand philip makes some dramatic changes with the help and guidance of dickie mambaton his uncle he decided or each was decided for him perhaps that he should take on british nationality and so he gave up his right to the greek throne he gave up his greek nationality he was no longer philip of greece and he became british and he became philip mountbatten and he also had to give up the religion he'd been baptized into he was no longer greek orthodox he now had to be anglican so they really do everything to change philip into the english man they wish he was i think those quite significant sacrifices was the beginning of a whole series of sacrifices that would then mark out phillip in relation to elizabeth was always going to have to try to conform to be acceptable by the summer of 1947 philip and elizabeth have finally won the king and queen's blessing in these the first special studies of the pair since the news of their engagement it's easy to see the radiant happiness of the princess as she and her very good-looking husband-to-be pose for the cameras in the palace philip marries elizabeth on november the 20th 1947 at westminster abbey the wedding day of philip and elizabeth couldn't have been grander couldn't have been more spectacular [Music] people got very very involved with it and very excited by it and the crowds were absolutely huge everything about the wedding is reinventing philip he's a great war hero he's practically british and now he's the marvellous future consort of the marvellous future queen but for all the joy of the day there's a bitter pill for philip to swallow his mother is the only member of his immediate family by his side his father prince andrea had died during the war after not seeing his son for many years and his sisters are not invited it was deemed that his sisters who'd married germans should not come over it was too soon after the war and so that was a source of great uh disappointment for him but life as the new duke and duchess of edinburgh is good for philip and elizabeth you have to remember that he he had been essentially homeless he had not had a family life since he was he did elizabeth meant the world to him and he was incredibly open about it their family grows quickly with the birth of prince charles in 1948 and princess anne two years later billy put behind him a lot of the difficulties of his childhood and i think he himself was was liberated by forming a happy family for the first time since his early childhood philip has a home of his own karen's house in london and despite taking on some royal duties alongside his wife he remains on active duty in the navy one of the happiest times in the young couple's life was when prince philip was posted to malta um he was out there for quite some time several months and elizabeth went out and stayed with him on two occasions quite protracted stays and this was a very almost normal existence for her and she absolutely loved it they had wonderful times that they would go to dances they would drive often without bodyguards i think there were very very happy times for philip and elizabeth between 1947 and 1952. i really think that philip and elizabeth imagine that their life post-marriage is going to be their life for the next 20 years or so that they'll live in clarence house he will do world duties he will support her they will have their children but it isn't going to be the big job it's not queen and consort i think both she and philip imagine that'll be a job they're doing when they are in their 40s going into their 50s there's no way i think that they have any idea how close it is around the corner but in 1951 king george vi becomes ill with what is later revealed to be lung cancer it falls to elizabeth and philip to take on more royal duties in his place including a tour of the commonwealth nations in early 1952 they were going to be away for um several months so they set off for kenya hoping that when they came back the king would would be okay but it was not to be just days after their departure on february the sixth king george dies in his sleep a royal aide breaks the news to philip phillip he just looked absolutely ashen faced because i think he realized his entire life at that moment was going to change [Music] i think he went into shock and he put a newspaper over his head and just absorbed this terrible news then he went to tell his wife philip has to break the news to his wife that her beloved father is gone and also that everything has changed overnight she is now the queen he is now the consort and the life they had how much will be forced to sacrifice and how will he use his turbulent childhood experiences to guide him in his new role as the new queen and the duke of edinburgh land in england from kenya following the death of george vi they have to confront the reality of their new lives their entire life changed when they arrived on the tarmac at london airport elizabeth came down the steps first and philip hung back and then of course the realization that the rest of his life he was gonna be two steps behind his wife must have really hit him the first step philip must take is to sacrifice his day job as consort philosophy of his naval career which is quite difficult it's something he fought for for so long and he's not allowed to keep his job he was about to be promoted to commando he was going to be in charge of a big ship so all of that had to be shown it was very difficult for philip to accept this role of second in command when he used to being in command philip though is bucking the trend in post-war britain most men have the expectation of being master of their own households for prince philip that expectation is turned on its head philip becomes console in the midst of the 1950s at a time when patriarchy and hierarchy absolutely rules women are at home as housewives and here is philip effectively being thrown into position of the you know the country's ultimate house husband philip now has to work out what he is going to do there is no job description with the role of consort to a queen albert was the last nearly 100 years earlier to victoria he has to find a role for himself he has to find an identity as consort it's not prescribed the queen of course received government business in those royal boxes which he was never privy to the queen was having audiences with her first prime minister winston churchill he was excluded from them what was to be his purpose it was the beginning of a very very difficult period in his life philip sees himself as a modernizing force but is frustrated by resistance from powerful figures within the palace philip finds his role of consort as being squashed by his mother-in-law because queen elizabeth the queen mother who wants to stay in buckingham palace have a role of influence over her daughter and what you start to see happening during the early reign of queen elizabeth is that there really becomes this bathroom mother who wants everything to stay exactly the same and there are further attempts to marginalize philip by some of the old guards serving the monarchy the courtiers were brutal to him they looked down their noses at him they didn't give him any attention the courtiers weren't really interested in them they didn't really have a lot of time for this upstart this usurper as they used to regard him philip of course is a man who's come fresh from conflict the navy is in his blood he needs adrenaline he needs a purpose he needs to be doing things [Music] but philip turns an early setback into a personal mission as newlyweds princess elizabeth and philip were living happily in clarence house where philip had overseen the wholesale modernization [Music] but it really throws himself into creating clarence house as a home for this young family and that i think really reflects the fact i've never had a home before so they had all the mod cons and philip loved mod cons and they had washing machine but as monic elizabeth is expected to move into buckingham palace which is a personal blow for philip no one likes living in buckingham palace buckingham palace is really a big office and no one ever seems to like living in there and they were no exception it lacked the intimacy they've been used to and his wife was no longer his wife she was now really married to the country she was always surrounded by advisers by coaches people who wanted him out of the way philip though launches himself into revolutionizing how things are done at the palace he was a proud successful man without a real role this was a real dilemma for him but he threw himself into knives there he went around buckingham palace literally run by looking at what needed to be modernized how communication around the parties could be improved so he began to question the way things were being done of course that didn't go down at all well where things were done year after year decade after decade because that's the way tradition would have it but he wanted to shake all that up and so he made himself incredibly unpopular with an awful lot of the grey men if you like at the palace undaunted by the forces opposing him philip persists with his determination for a greater role he wanted to do more and he wanted to have an influence and the queen knew that and she put him for example in charge of the coronation commission to oversee the arrangements of the coronation and here we see for the first time phillip being something of a mothery perhaps because of his status as being an outsider having a different kind of perspective philip feels very strongly that the coronation it should be more modern there should be open that the bbc's request to televise it should be admitted and there are traditionalists who disagree with this they think it could undermine the majesty of royalty sees the advantages of harnessing the new medium of television he for example knew that the coronation was going to be a critical event saw the opportunity of making the coronation this global event like none other letting the television cameras into the abbey for the first time and against the reservation the government of winston churchill phillip really pushed that through philip is always battling to have his ideas taken seriously always having to fight because lots of people will say to elizabeth was that phillips idea well no because they really exclude him and ignore him for almost two days and nights the crowds have been assembling in sunshine and rain for the moment when the young queen radiant in her exquisite gun left the palace for westminster the coronation takes place on june 2nd 1953 with television cameras capturing every moment more than 20 million people in britain tuned in to watch the ceremony and eight years after the war another victory phillips sisters are allowed to attend and so does his mother princess alice who is now living as a nun in athens philip always been very very fond of his mother and i think he was really happy that his mother should be there but she came in her gray nun's habit so she she was very obvious it was a great moment for and and his relations but the success of the coronation both on the world stage and for philip personally comes off the back of a bodybuilder for the man in the support realm i suppose philip had to swallow an awful lot as a proud male and a royal male but one thing that really grated with him was the fact after their marriage the couple were known as the edinburghs but once elizabeth ascended the throne the plan is that she will be part of the house of windsor he expected absolutely expected that elizabeth would take his name on marriage and that the children would take his name so therefore it would be the house of mountbatten philip's assumption that the family will adopt his surname his political dynamite various people most importantly churchill were dead set against this idea and were determined that the name should remain windsor there was a big row about it but philip lost the argument and the queen creed that her children charles and anne would be part of the house of windsor but during the row he said what kind of man am i i'm just a bloody amoeba he said so it was very very hurtful to him i think he really felt that if he gave up his title his religion his name his nationality then the actual reward would be that he got to be philip the house of mountbatten and not as that really made him feel excluded very humiliated and it was a very difficult moment for him philip has a tried and tested way of dealing with the strains of royalty i think having had the upbringing he experienced he just adopted that same attitude to royal life this is what i've married into this is the hand i've been dealt we'll just get on with it um and that's what he did it wasn't always easy there were rifts in the marriage there were rocky periods there were times when he felt he just had to get away did get away philip focuses his energies on where he believes he can make a difference inspired by his own education and achievements at gordonston philip establishes the duke of edinburgh awards scheme in 1956 the life of modern youth isn't all pop music long hair and punch-ups he recently presented gold awards to 127 girls and over 750 boys [Music] he wanted to empower youth he wanted them to meet the challenges that were facing them not in a pampered way but in a way to try to engage them in society but phillip finds that he still has his detractors wanting to curb his ambitions the politician actually says to him this sounds rather like the hitler youth and what a thing to say it really brings home the anti-german xenophobia there was in britain at the time and the fact was that philip who'd fought so bravely on the side of the allies and that i think really reflects how often philip was blocked openly and subtly and was constantly subject to these people saying no no stay in that corner just smile and wave with his modernizers head on taking tours of inspection his thoroughness was often inclined to startle but now we're used to his rather specialized approach and we see him here showing his particular interest in industry prince fred was always from a very young age fascinated by science technology his uncle georgie also loved to make things and philip was a young boy would be so happy to go into the workshop and and see him uh making model steam engines um designing all sorts of things i think this is where philip's love of design came actually he's literally toured the country at different points visiting factories speaking up about british engineering british science ladies and gentlemen it is clearly our duty as citizens to see that science is used for the benefit of mankind prince philip had this great enthusiasm it came from the heart sort of spokesman on behalf of british scientists and british industry and became a very effective advocate for industries in the period after the second world war by the late 1950s philip has cemented his position in the monarchy bolstered by being made a prince of the united kingdom by the queen in 1957 but after returning childhood and a difficult move into the royal household as a young man how will these challenging times shape philip in the long years ahead [Music] it's august 2017 and prince philip takes one final salute before retiring at the age of 96 [Music] in his 70 years by the queen's side he has carved out a unique role as her most loyal lieutenant and champion of hundreds of his own charities and courses he's traveled enormously 22 000 engagements 800 charities that he's been involved with and any charity that philip has been involved with has said yes this man made an enormous difference his early struggles are now a distant memory but phillips workers consort has undoubtedly been changed by those tumultuous years i think that having such a troubled childhood really made philip the man that he is i think he's given the backbone to him to put up with anything and that has been his philosophy through his life don't moan about it just get on with it and that's what he's done he is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years phillips experience weathering the stores of his childhood has stood him in good stead throughout his royal career never more so than in the 1990s when the royal family was rocked by a series of christ philip tries to help he writes to diana saying that he understands what it's like to be outside of the royal family to be seen as an outsider the sort of things that he wrote to her about were the difficulties that he had had when he had joined the family the pressures that he'd been under how he understood the pressures that she would feel philips intervention was not enough to save the marriage charles and diana officially separated in 1992 a year so bad for the royal family that the queen called it horrific although she said it in latin it has turned out to be an anus or rebellious but worse was to come in 1997 when princess diana was killed in a car accident in paris [Music] her young sons were staying at balmoral with prince philip and the queen when they received the terrible news there was probably no one better qualified or better place to help william and harry after the death of their mother than their grandfather philip we have to remember that he had essentially lost his mother when he was just coming up to nine when she was committed to a sanatorium his father also actually abandoned him so he was very empathetic obviously towards his grandsons william and harry another tragedy from philipp's childhood may have been on his mind when it came to advising the boys about the funeral procession prince william and prince harry weren't terribly keen on the idea of walking in the procession prince philip took the long view and he said i think when you're older that you would very much regret not walking behind your mother's coffin philip had done it himself behind his own sister's coffin age 16 walked behind cecile's coffin devastated full of pain [Music] it's a very sweet moment when prince philip puts his arm around william as they go under admiralty arch although people when you look back think it was something too much for prince harry to do and he himself has reflected upon that i suspect as he gets older he'll be pleased that he did it and that he listened to the wise counsel of his grandfather somebody who i think has experienced great tragedy in his life the dark days of the 1990s hurt the royal family's standing with the british public prince philipp plays an important role in helping restore the family's popularity in the 21st century perhaps motivated by his own experience that how quickly a nation can turn against its monarchy his family were thrown off the greek phone and he had to flee in a packing box so i think that he was always conscious of that and always conscious that even though the british monarchy seemed so stable that it could be knocked off its perch philip came from european royal they they were having their their kingdoms taken away and he felt very much that the british royal family must stick together they must all work together for the common name which is the good of the monarchy in 2020 the royal family is facing new challenges not least the departure of the duke and duchess of sussex the new conductors of sussex have announced they intend to step back as senior members of the royal family i think we all know from recent history that becoming part of the british royal family is not easy diana bailed out uh fergie bailed out harry and megan have both left royal duties it's not easy but i think phillip really made the best of it on the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary philip gives an insight into one of his guiding principles the main lesson that we've learned is that tolerance is the one essential ingredient of any happy marriage it may not be quite so important when things are going well but it is absolutely vital when things get difficult prince philip's life has never been smooth sailing beginning with exile and abandonment through his wartime heroics and early battles with the royal establishment to the tempestuous years of the 1990s but it's these storms that have given him the resilience and the strength to succeed in his role guiding his family supporting the queen and serving the country for more than 70 years [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] good philip's experiences before joining the house of windsor explained his later life service and devotion there was nothing of a home life for him there are some people who have difficult home lives who it drives to work harder and to succeed after 50 years of experience i find there's a great temptation to give advice [Music] turkey in 1922 the greek army is invading its old enemy in a brutal war one of the army's leading figures is the greek prince andrea who has recently become father to baby phillip prince philip's father was a major general in the greek army who were invading part of turkey anatolia but there was a huge military setback and and the greek forces had to flee to the coast following the army's humiliating retreat from turkey the pro-monarchy greek government is overthrown and its leaders are held responsible for the disaster in the aftermath of this coup several of the people were caught marshalled and executed including a former prime minister a former foreign minister um several of some top generals and when the execution was carried out they all stood incredibly brave and stared at the firing squad prince philip's father in for philip suddenly

Channel: UK Documentary

Views: 20,065

Keywords: Queen, PrinceCharles, PrincessDiana, PrinceWilliam, Kate, PrinceHarry, MeghanMarkle

Id: P1CRj2q5U3o

Length: 54min 57sec (3297 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 17 2021