When the Royal Yacht Britannia arrived at the Pier Head, Liverpool, in 1977, Prince Philip was standing alongside the Bishop of Liverpool David Sheppard when the band on the quayside struck up ‘The Lord is my Shepherd.’ The Prince whispered to the bishop out of the side of his mouth: ‘They’re playing your tune.’ This was entirely unrelated to what occurred when the royal couple returned to Liverpool in 2004. At a reception to mark the centenary of Liverpool Cathedral, Prince Phillip helped himself to a couple of extra cans of brown ale, tucking them into his inside jacket pocket ‘for the onward journey.’
Sometimes it seems he had little time for the clergy, telling the New York Times in 1984: ‘Almost without exception they preach peace, good will and the brotherhood of man, and yet many of them have been used by the unscrupulous to cause more human conflict and misery than any other system, save perhaps Communism.’
Discussing the 1859 volume Self-Help by Samel Smiles with Lord Harris of High Cross, founder of the right-wing think-tank, the Institute for Economic Affairs, the prince said: ‘I think you should arrange for every bishop in the country to have a copy. They all seem to confuse self-help and individual responsibility with selfishness.’
Prince Philip famously said of long sermons: ‘The mind cannot absorb what the backside cannot endure.’
In 1957, he addressed the annual dinner of the Royal Army Chaplains. Thinking back to his own time in the services, he said: ‘The tables are turned with a vengeance this evening, I cannot think how many hours I have spent at your mercy… I have got two alternatives this evening. One is to take the Old Testament doctrine of an eye for an eye, but this you can readily see has many disadvantages, including a lot of hard work for me. Or, on the other hand, I can take the New Testament doctrine and offer you the other cheek. I cannot help thinking that that would cause even more confusion. You would all have to get up and deliver a sermon at once, or one after another which would be even worse.’
Professional Bodies
At the 450th anniversary banquet of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in June 1955, the president presented the prince with a silver replica of the cup formerly used by doctors to bleed their patients. ‘And now, sir, may it please your royal highness to accept this bleeding cup?’ Philip could not resist it. ‘I can only say – it’s bloody kind of you,’ he said with a broad smile.
Becoming president of the National Playing Fields Association in 1947, Prince Philip quickly mastered the subject. Opening a playing field in Devon, he outlined the general principles. ‘There is no need to have a Rolls-Royce scheme. You want a reasonably flat piece of ground with sufficient grass on it and some posts, and if you can get these you’re halfway home. Put on the fancy waistcoats later.’ Then addressing the opening of the National Playing Field Association exhibition in 1954, he said: ‘You planners and designers may believe that you’ve designed the perfect layout for the perfect playing field as seen through adult eyes. But I can assure you that it may prove deadly dull to a child of four.’
As president of the Library Association, Prince Philip admitted that he did not pass muster. At their meeting in Edinburgh in 1953, he told members: ‘In 1951, I was a very bad president of the Library Association. I was very bad because I spent most of that year at sea… in more ways than one.’
In June 1954, Prince Philip was made Master of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, though he was, admittedly, unqualified for the position. ‘I am feeling slightly embarrassed because I realise that the qualification of membership is, of course, a Master’s Certificate, and up to a short time ago I felt I was going to be in a very undistinguished position of being the only one here without a Master’s Certificate. Luckily the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation saved me from further embarrassment by making good the deficiency, so thank you very much indeed. You are quite safe; I do not think there will be any chance of my using it.’ It helps to have friends in high places.
At the annual dinner of the National Farmers’ Union in February 1956, he said: ‘I am now in a bit of a quandary as I am supposed to propose a toast to agriculture, and I know less about the subject than anybody else here. About four years ago I knew nothing about it at all. I could have told you that Globirgarina ooze is a type of seaweed, but if you asked me about proctor I could only have told you that it is a form of university police or that the king kept on about somewhere… It has been my experience that if anything goes wrong in agriculture, the farmer invariably blames the weather or the government, or both. Now, I hold no brief for the weather and no one can accuse me of having anything to do with government policy, but I think this attitude is rather unfair.’
As president of the Automobile Association, he told the annual general meeting in 1958: ‘I’ve been made to sit in this room next door all the morning, listening to the most enormous amount of bunkum – except for the chairman of course – and at last it’s my turn to add my quota of bunkum.’
In 1957, he was having lunch with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain when the Canadian Trade Mission were in town. ‘I ought to say right away – just to get the record straight – that I accepted an invitation some month ago to lunch with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, long before the Trade Mission was ever appointed,’ he said. ‘I only say that because it’s not often that one can eat two lunches for the price of one.’
Speaking at the English-Speaking Union World Branches Conference in Ottawa in October 1958, he said: ‘We are only just at the beginning of the vast and important contributions which the English-Speak Union can make to the world. May I hasten to add that this does not include teaching people to speak English.’
He went on to tell the English-Speaking Union that he and the Queen had attended a banquet given by the English-Speaking Union of the United States in New York the previous year. ‘Next month, on 26 November, I hope to preside at a dinner in the Guildhall in London in honour of Vice-President Nixon. That, I think, puts the Commonwealth one up.’ Banging the drum for the Commonwealth, he went on to say that English was ‘a commonly understood language which can do so much to encourage the cohesion of that wide community who are fortunate enough to be in the Commonwealth, and those less fortunate people who are not members. Applications for membership will receive sympathetic consideration.’ When Richard Nixon went on to become president of the United States in 1969, he did not apply to join.
Opening the English-Speaking Union’s Symposium in London in 1960, Prince Philip said: ‘The Oxford Pocket Dictionary gives two definitions of a symposium – ‘an ancient Greek drinking party; philosophical or other friendly discussion, set of articles on one subject from various writers and points of view.’ I shall assume that this symposium is intended to follow the line of the second of these definitions.’ Again he drew attention to trans-Atlantic dimension of the Union. ‘You will notice that heading the list of speakers is the Hon. Arthur Dean, chairman of the English-Speaking Union of the United States, and, for reasons I won’t go into here, the United States is not a member of the Commonwealth. She might have been, but that is another story.’
Addressing the Canadian Medical Association in Toronto in June 1959, he said: ‘I cannot help feeling that I am in a very quaint situation. Here I am, a layman, at their invitation as joint president of the Canadian and British Medical Associations, the professional holy of holies of medical men. In recent months I have frequently speculated on the reasons for this invitation without much success; but, for my part, I accepted the invitation as a great honour and privilege and as a gracious gesture on the part of the medical profession to their victims. However, I also accepted for two reasons. In the first place it would enable me to say something nice to the medical profession as a whole, on behalf of the thousands of millions of past and present patients who owe so much to the tireless and selfless work of doctors and nurses. Secondly, it seemed a perfectly marvellous opportunity to do a little preaching to the preachers. For once, a patient, although not currently suffering fro
m anything more serious that nervous prostration, has got the medical profession or a sizable part of it in Canada and the United Kingdom at his mercy.’ Later he quoted from a CMA report: ‘The definition of physical fitness are presently understood and often enunciated by persons who do not base their statements on scientific observations.’ He added: ‘That last sentence must have been specially put in for my benefit.’
Speaking the British Medical Association four months later, he said: ‘I can report that the meeting and my installation as president of the Canadian Medical Association in Toronto was a great occasion and, despite the things I said in my address there, I’m glad to say that no one threw anything at me. May I add that I expect the same considerate treatment here. For a layman and an occasional patient to find himself in this exalted position is pleasant enough but there is a distinct feeling that one must tread with caution. I am sufficiently ambitious to wish that I could do something, however small, to advance your interests, but I’m also sufficiently a realist to know that the BMA will go on performing its functions more or less successfully without any interference from me.’
A president of both the British and Canadian Medical Associations, Prince Philip refers to himself as ‘Chief Medicine Man.’
Asked to present the toast ‘The Craft of Surgery’ at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh he decided to pull rank. ‘As patron to the college, I offer myself a hearty welcome,’ he said. ‘In the same breath, perhaps, I ought to give the undertaking not to attempt to practise the craft of surgery. I understand that James IV sometimes used to have a go at members of his household. Mine are quite safe. I value their assistance and friendship too highly to take that sort of liberty with them. I am gratified to become an apprentice because, though you may not believe, I can read and write. However, I take it that I am also absolved from replying that I am an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh if anyone should ask if there is a doctor in the house.’
A joke was then in order. ‘Some of you will no doubt know the story about the glamorous film star who bruised her leg on a liner,’ he said. ‘The purser looked through the passenger list and hurried to get help from the first doctor on the list. But the man insisted that he was a LLD [Doctor of Laws]. ‘Never mind,’ said the purser, ‘she won’t know the difference.’ When the LLD got to the girl’s cabin, he found he had been beaten to it by a DD [Doctor of Divinity]. The only reason the DD got there first was obviously because there was no Hon FRCSE [Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh] in that ship.’
Again he foreswore practising, again stressing his ignorance of medical matters. He had been fortunate. ‘If I know nothing of the business end of surgery, so to speak, I am almost ignorant of the receiving end,’ he said. ‘In fact I had only been under the knife, which is an unattractive expression, twice to my certain knowledge.’
Later that same year Prince Philip was addressing the Ghana Medical Association and thanked its president for welcoming him that evening: ‘Your recital of my rather more important-sounding positions might lead people to suppose that I had some sort of qualifications. Nothing could be farther from the case and my connection with medicine will always be that of an occasional but interested patient. Luckily one only needs qualifications to practise medicine, no one has ever suggested that one needs qualifications to talk about it.’
Proposing the toast ‘The Common Health’ at a BMA dinner in 1959, he again drew attention to the fact that he was hardly qualified to address them on the subject of medicine or health as he was not ‘a hypochondriac or doctor.’ He said he was rather surprised by the choice of the toast, because proposing health to doctors was like proposing a toast to pedestrians at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, or a toast to teetotallers at the Licensed Victuallers’. ‘I could have understood a toast to patients,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps even to nurses and hospital staff – or even, at a pinch, and if you’re feeling very Christian, to the Ministry of Health. But as a matter of fact, the choice of this toast this evening quite suits me, because ‘Common Health’ describes, I think, quite well the sort of no-man’s-land between positive good health and active bad health. I couldn’t help thinking of it as rather a mixture been good health, common wealth and a common cold.’
Following the toastmaster’s announcement at the golden jubilee dinner of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 1957, Prince Philip said that he felt the introduction could have stressed his credentials. ‘Perhaps the toastmaster ought to have added, ‘Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Fellow of the Royal Society and several other organisations,’’ he said. ‘But I would like to warn you that this does not mean I necessarily know what I am talking about this evening.’ However he proclaimed himself a ‘satisfied customer’ because of the travelling he had done. ‘I don’t know of the dangers or the names of the diseases I might have contracted,’ he said. ‘But I have in recent years visited a good many laboratories where they have been tinkering about with these things and, having seen the sort of things they are working at, I am even more grateful that I did not get them.’
In 1958, he was given honorary membership of the British Dental Association. ‘There is one great disappointment though,’ he said, ‘and that is that you have now told me I am not allowed to practise.’
At a luncheon to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the British Association of Industrial Editors in 1959, Prince Philip again noted that they may have picked the wrong speaker. ‘At first sight, it would appear that I have very little qualification to be here, or even to speak about the subject of industrial editors and house journals, or to propose this toast at all,’ he said. ‘Well, it just shows how wrong everybody can be, because it just so happened that I belong to an organisation that has probably got the oldest house journal going. In fact, it must be one of the first. It’s called rather The Court Circular. I regret to say that the editor is very part-time and I am pretty sure that he does not belong to this association.’
Visiting Canada to discuss the arrangements for the second Commonwealth Conference on the Human Problems of Industrial Communities which was going to be held there in 1962, he told journalists: ‘Now I cannot think of any more unsuitable subject for an after-dinner speech, even if everyone present were madly interested in it. But my orders were to tell you about this conference, so whether you like it or not you’re going to hear about it. If anyone feels like throwing tomatoes, please throw them at the chap who suggested this subject.’
Addressing the annual dinner of the Chartered Insurance Institute in 1953, he again stressed his inadequacy to the task. ‘I cannot help feeling somewhat surprised that you have asked me to propose this toast. As far as I know my life has never been insured, and I doubt very much whether any of my personal goods and chattels are worth insuring either. I know Bluebottle, Cowslip and Kiwi are insured, but you can put that down perhaps to my knowledge of marine risks, especially if I happen to be sailing them. I might, on the other hand, be interested in other forms of insurance, for instance, my Lord Mayor, excessive hospitality…’
The number of roles Prince Philip takes on can cause confusion. In May 1962, the Lord’s Taverners were holding a charity luncheon at Fishmongers’ Hall. As Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, it was his duty to rise and welcome the Taverners. He sat down, but then had to get up again. As patron and Twelfth Man of the Taverners, it fell to him to thank the Prime Warden, himself, for having them there. His next task as patron of the Taverners was to present the annual cheque raised by the Lord’s Taverners to himself as president of the National Playing Fields Association. Then, as president of the National Playing Fields Association, he had to thank himself as the patron of the Lord’s Taverners.
At the annual dinner of the Magistrates of the Metropolitan Juvenile Courts, he said: ‘How sorry I am that the Chief Magistrate is not here with us this evening. I gather he is getting on well and there’s nothing really very much the matt
er with him, and if it is any consolation to him I imagine that it is owing to his age that he escaped being run in for doing wilful damage to a lamp-post.’ Prince Philip also said that he had recently discovered he was a justice of the peace.
In March 1960, Prince Philip was installed as Lord High Steward of Plymouth. In his acceptance speech to the Lord Mayor he said: ‘On and off for four hundred years, Plymouth has had Lord High Stewards, and in all that time, no one seems to have settled in any great detail the duties of the Lord High Steward. One is left with the impression that the position has no duties. This, sire, suits me admirably, and I can only hope that no one tries to think of any – at least while I hold this position… I accept this position and this rod of office, which I have been instructed to return to you, sir, at once, for safe keeping.’
At the 150th anniversary dinner of the Royal Caledonian Schools at the Dorchester Hotel in London, Prince Philip noticed that the toastmaster had not, as usual, announced that, once the dinner was over, diners could smoke. ‘We had some little discussion about this and I came to the conclusion that now parliament has seen fit to prevent the advertising of smoking it would be quite improper for anyone on such an occasion to do anything so improper as to say smoking might take place… I notice, however, it has not been the least discouraging.’ Philip himself gave up smoking before he got married.
The Youth of Today
Despite Prince Philip’s patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, young people also come in for some stick. In 2006, marking its fiftieth anniversary, he was asked where the scheme was still relevant. He replied: ‘Young people are the same as they always were. They are just as ignorant.’ His son Prince Edward had just been given a gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. ‘But for that he would have been a dropout,’ said Philip. Edward had dropped out of the Royal Marines and failed in his career in the theatre and TV. Nevertheless, Prince Philip’s grandson Prince William had just passed a degree in geography. Prince Philip marked the occasion by saying: ‘We get a small government grant, and I sometimes wonder, why bother?’
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