On the other hands, he never did much to endear himself to the press. In 1950, on being shown the Barbary apes on Gibraltar, he remarked: ‘Which are the press and which are the apes?’
He cannot overcome his distaste and is always on the defensive when it comes to the press. One British reporter recalled approaching Prince Philip with a positive comment, but the prince fended off the approach nonetheless with a convenient defence mechanism:
an electronic buzzer in his pocket and that sent the police running.
Prince Philip’s biographer Tim Heald revealed how every day, wherever he is, the prince makes a grab for the newspapers saying: ‘Let’s see what I’m supposed to have done wrong
The newspaper strike in 1955 seemed to provide a respite from this cynical experience: ‘Breakfast seemed to take no time at all.’ The newspaper strike in 1955 seemed to provide a respite from this cynical experience: ‘Breakfast seemed to take no time at all.’
The prince always makes sure to speak to the press with candour. In 1980, veteran Sun photographer Arthur Edwards was sitting in his car outside the stables at Sandringham, talking to a friend, when Prince Philip stuck his head through the window and said: ‘Having a good snoop, are we?’
Sometimes, the prince gets a taste of his own medicine when the press dishes out their own sass. Once, the dirty-raincoat brigade was loitering by the gates of Sandringham when Prince Philip drove up in his Land Rover. ‘You people are scum,’ he bawled out of the window. The veteran royal correspondent of the Sun rose to the challenge: ‘We may be scum, sir,’ he retorted, ‘but we are the crème de la scum.’
In 2007, Prince Philip was asked by a journalist about the bruising on his face. ‘Do I look bloody ill?’ he replied. He had slipped over in the bath.
At a reception at Windsor Castle to market the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002, Philip asked The Independent’s Simon Kelner, an outspoken republican: ‘Who are you?’ Kelner replied: ‘I’m the editor-in-chief of The Independent.’ Unimpressed, the prince said: ‘What are you doing here?’ Kelner replied deferentially: ‘You invited me, sir.’ Philip snapped back: ‘Well, you didn’t have to come.’
The editors of downmarket tabloids fare no better. When the editor of the Daily Mirror introduced himself to the prince, he said: ‘God, you can’t tell from the outside, can you?’ But then, the editor in question was Piers Morgan.
Another victim was Martin Townsend, editor of the Sunday Express. ‘Ah, the Sunday Express,’ said Philip when they were introduced. ‘I was very fond of Arthur Christiansen’ – editor of the Daily Express from 1933 to 1957. ‘Yes, there’s been a long line of distinguished editors,’ said Townsend. ‘I didn’t say that!’ the Prince snapped, making his point clear as he walked away.
In Bangladesh in 1983, the Royal couple were greeting the guests at a cocktail party when Prince Philip spotted the arrival of the press. He turned to the Queen and said: ‘Here come the bloody reptiles’ – a sentiment Private Eye usually attributes to Denis Thatcher.
If at worst they were ‘the bloody reptiles,’ then at best journalists were ‘the people’s ambassadors,’ as the prince referred to them at the Foreign Press Association anniversary dinner in 1948, where he was guest of honour. It would have been nearly a compliment, too, if he had not added dryly: ‘And if I may say so, I often wish the people didn’t want to know quite so much.’
When asked by the British Parliamentary Press Gallery to give his views on journalists in general in 1956, Prince Philip was uncharacteristically reticent. ‘It is very tempting,’ he said, ‘but I think I had better wait until I get a bit older.’ He was capable of a backhanded compliment though. ‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘I think that journalism, like any other great institution in this country, is capable of both the best and the worst. In fact, I think that our journalism very accurately reflects our nature, both with the lid on and with the lid off. But personally, all I can say is that there are times when I would very much like to be a newspaper owner.’
In 1954, in a leading article, the Daily Mirror said that the royal family had nothing better to do than sit at home and ‘twiddle their thumbs.’ On a visit to the Ford Dunlop factory in Birmingham, Prince Philip hit back, saying: ‘Of course, ladies and gentleman, you know what I am doing – I am twiddling my thumbs.’
Visiting the White House in 1957, the royal couple were posing for photographs on the steps. As they turned to go, an American photographer yelled: ‘Hey, just one more!’ Cleary the man had overstepped protocol and Prince Philip barked back: ‘What do you mean, just one more?’
At a dinner for the Newspaper Press Fund in May 1955, Prince Philip said: ‘I am in a bit of a quandary this evening because I can’t very well talk about charity all the time, in which case I’m left with the press and, quite frankly, I’d rather be left with a baby… On the other hand, it would be ungracious and hardly tactful to criticise any aspect of the press, particularly after such a good dinner, and it might also prejudice your charitable frame of mind. I don’t know how easy it is for a journalist to work up a charitable frame of mind.’ The Newspaper Press Fund was set up in 1864 to assist journalists and their dependants who had fallen on hard times – it is now known as the Journalists’ Charity.
At a Press Association lunch in June 1963, he responded to an article saying he had been over-quoted and over-photographed. ‘It is encouraging to know that at least I am being killed by kindness,’ he said.
In March 1962, he said: ‘The Daily Express is a bloody awful newspaper.’ Few could disagree with that. But he went on to say that it was ‘full of lies, scandal and imagination… a vicious newspaper’. No change there then.
At the Newspaper Society Golden Jubilee lunch in 2002, Prince Philip asked a guest which local paper he worked for. ‘I’m terribly sorry sir, but I’m an impostor,’ replied the journalist. ‘I’m from the Peterborough column of the Daily Telegraph.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ said the Prince. ‘It’s not your fault.’
At a state banquet in Paris in 1996, Prince Philip said to President Jacques Chirac: ‘If we had your laws, the British press could not have done so much damage to the royal family.’ Thanks, in part, to the investigative work of the satirical newspaper Le Canard enhaîné, Chirac was convicted of embezzlement and other corruption charges in 2011.
He has little patience for the press to begin with, not to mention the less-than-hard-hitting questions. After a banquet in the Élysée Palace, BBC reporter Caroline Wyatt asked if the Queen was enjoying her trip to Paris, Prince Philip replied: ‘Damn fool question!’
In 2004, when BBC newsreader Michael Buerk told Prince Philip he knew about the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Awards, the prince replied: ‘That’s more than you know about anything else then.’
This was a little harsh as Michael Buerk had commentated at the royal wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999. However, Buerk had gone on to award Ryan Parry with the prestigious Hugh Cudlipp medal at the British Press Awards for ‘excellence in popular tabloid journalism’ after the twenty-six-year-old Daily Mirror reporter had used a fake CV to get a job as a footman in Buckingham Palace. Ryan revealed Prince Edward’s love of teddy bears, Prince Andrew’s use of colourful language, Princess Anne’s taste in black bananas and that the Queen and Prince Philip kept their cereals in a Tupperware box.
When ITN did a live-to-camera piece on Prince Philip’s romantic gesture of taking the Queen back to Malta for their sixtieth wedding anniversary, he crept up behind the reporter and loudly yelled ‘finished!’ causing her to jump before bursting into laughter.
Similar antics were had at the Seventy-fifth Royal Variety Performance in Edinburgh, when he turned to a journalist and asked ‘Bloody hell, they’ve dragged you all the way up here, have they?’
In 1966, the matron of a hospital Prince Philip was visiting in the West Indies apologized for the pestering mosquitos. The prince seemed to sympathize: ‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘You have mosquitoes. I have the press.�
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At a press conference at London Airport in 1966, a TV crew that tried shoving a microphone under his nose was met with sass. ‘Here comes that bloody machine again,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you take the thing and stuff it up…’ The next few words were inaudible. ‘You wouldn’t like it.’
Although at first he resisted participating in the documentary The Duke at 90, he eventually agreed, insisting: ‘We’re not a secret society. I don’t see why people shouldn’t know what’s going on. Much better that they should know than speculate.’ Nevertheless, the media was intrusive. ‘The media is a professional intruder,’ he said. ‘You can’t complain about it.’ Although, of course, he did.
On pressing media: ‘People only want to know about the splashy things, or the scandalous things. They’re not really interested in anything else. What you want is a Dynasty production where everybody can see what we do privately.’ ‘The press have turned us into a soap opera,’ he said on another occaison.
Press photographers were the bane of his existence. ‘I go out of my way to line people up for the photographers,’ he said, ‘to make sure everyone in the group is in the picture, to make sure the photographers have got the shot they need… Of course, they always want one more. They’re never satisfied.’
The prince’s resentment for the press even comes in many languages! A French photographer was once admonished with the line ‘Vous etes fou, restez chez vous’ – ‘You are a fool, go home.’
The press often deliberately antagonise Prince Philip, knowing that he might snap back giving them a juicy quote and a good picture. In 1987 in Trinidad, he turned on reporters and snarled: ‘You lot have ruined my life.’ Journalists seized the opportunity to point out that Philip had arrived in Britain homeless and penniless and had risen to live a life of absolute privilege, with an income then of £200,000, castles and palaces to live in, sixteen weeks’ holiday a year and an army of servants to cater for his every whim. Hardly a life in ruins.
Finale
At the age of seventy-eight, Prince Philip already felt the end was near. This didn’t seem to worry him, though: he told a royal biographer ‘It’s much better to go while you’re still capable, than wait till people say you’re so doddery, it’s time you went.’
On turning eighty, Prince Philip said: ‘I’m not sure I recommend it. It’s not so much the age, but trying to survive the celebrations.’
More than thirty members of the Royal Family, including seventeen of his German relations, turned out for his eightieth birthday party. The celebrations included twenty boy dancers dressed in sailor suits who performed a specially choreographed Duke’s hornpipe. At the end of it, they produced flags and wished him a happy birthday in semaphore. Prince Philip was sure to credit the fact that he remained fit and well to all the toasts to his health.
In 2011, he was given an Oldie of the Year Award as ‘Consort of the Year.’ Unable to attend the lunch at Simpson’s in The Strand to accept it, he sent a handwritten note, saying ‘I much appreciate your invitation to receive an ‘Oldie of the Year Award.’ There is nothing like it for morale to be reminded that the years are passing – ever more quickly – and that bits are beginning to drop off the ancient frame.’
On ageing gracefully: ‘You don’t really want nonagenarians as heads of organisations which are trying to do something useful. There is an ageism in this country, as everywhere, and quite rightly so, because I think you go downhill – physically, mentally and everything. It’s better to get out before you reach the sell-by date.’
Passing ninety years old, he admitted: ‘I reckon I’ve done my bit, I want to enjoy myself for a bit now. With less responsibility, less rushing about, less preparation, less trying to think of something to say. On top of that your memory’s going, I can’t remember names. Yes, I’m just sort of winding down.’
When it was suggested that he might hope to live to be a hundred, Prince Philip assured us: ‘I am not, I can tell you.’ The question is, if he did, would he get a telegram from the Queen?
Biography
Prince Philip, Duke of York, is a national treasure. He is a throwback to a time when Britannia ruled the waves and when the royal families of Europe interbred: the Queen is his third cousin; they share a great-great-grandmother in Queen Victoria; his mother Princess Alice of Battenberg and sister of Lord Mountbatten was born in the Tapestry Room in Windsor Castle.
Despite his disrupted childhood and general penury, Prince Philip has led a successful and exciting life. In 1939, when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the Royal Naval College, Prince Philip escorted his cousins Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, and the future queen (at only thirteen years old) fell for the handsome prince. The two began exchanging letters, and in the summer of 1946 he asked for Princess Elizabeth’s hand in marriage. Although Prince Philip was penniless, he was of royal blood and the proposal was accepted. He renounced his right to the Greek and Danish thrones, converted from the Orthodox Church to the Church of England, and became a British subject. The day before their wedding, King George VI bestowed the style His Royal Highness on Philip, and he was made a knight of the Order of the Garter. On the morning of the wedding, Philip was made the Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich. These were the first of numerous titles he accrued.
Then in 1952, George VI died and Prince Philip’s wife became Queen Elizabeth II. However irascible the prince may be in private (it is said that he has a temper shorter than an improvised explosive device), in public he knew his place. After the Queen was crowned in 1953, he made the pledge: ‘I Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, do become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear unto you, to live and die, against all manner of folks. So help me God.’ He then had to retire from the Navy – a move which could not have been easy for the honoured officer – to become full-time royal consort, a role he has now fulfilled for over sixty years.
Over the past sixty years, a great deal has changed in Britain, but it was clear to Prince Philip that the royal family thrived on tradition. He dedicated himself to personifying the old values: patriotism, Anglicanism, hierarchy, pageantry, ceremony, and knowing which fork to use. He was irredeemably U – as opposed to non-U – as defined by Nancy Mitford in her 1954 essay ‘The English Aristocracy.’ The U here stands for ‘upper class.’ Those who are U say napkin rather than serviette, lavatory rather than toilet, and vegetables rather than greens.
It was also U to maintain wartime attitudes to foreigners. There were unreliable Italians, shifty Polish Jews, and weeping, romantic, fat Belgians. Military memos routinely referred to ‘the Boche’ and ‘the Hun.’ In Mitford’s 1945 novel The Pursuit of Love, Uncle Matthew declares ‘frogs are slightly better than Huns or wops, but abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends.’ Even Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels that began in 1953 are riddled with casual national stereotypes and racial generalisations.
Such attitudes were commonplace. While others have become politically correct, Prince Philip has stuck to his guns. The prince does not do irony. He has no time for wordplay. His is the form of humour that identifies specific characteristics, exaggerates them, and then mocks them. He doesn’t mean anything by it – Prince Philip comes from a generation that genuinely believes Johnny Foreigner quite likes being teased by us. The press may howl about his ‘gaffes’ – calling the Chinese ‘slitty-eyed,’ the Hungarians pot-bellied and the Aborigines spear-chucker – but few take offence. Many of the old-school congratulate him for being ‘forthright’ and ‘apologetic,’ while those of a left-wing persuasion have long realised that such remarks are only made to get their dander up. He is like an aged uncle who likes to get a rise from the younger generation but, deep down, means no harm.
His humour comes from the ward room, when Britain was at the height of empire. Most people from that era are now gone; those that remain have adapted to modern sensibilities. Prince Philip is unique in having survived with his seeming
insensitivity intact, and he occupies a position in public life where he feels no need to button his lip. He is, quite simply, the upholder of an older humorous tradition, a living joke museum.
What’s more, most of his witticisms are not delivered off the cuff. He puts a lot of work into what he has to say. And much of what he says is not without foundation. He often gives voice to what other people think, but are too afraid to express – in public, at least.
While some people do not find the prince’s jokes amusing in themselves, they have stood the test of time. The rest of the royal family may clamour to update itself, but by cleaving to this ancient, creaking form of humour, Prince Philip has cemented his status as a king of comedy. If other people are not amused, he could not care less. As The Times put it on the event of his ninetieth birthday: ‘The Duke of Edinburgh is a monument to a vanishing form of humour. We should celebrate him while we still can.’
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The moral right of Nigel Cawthorne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publisher. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library. Copyright © 2015 by Nigel Cawthorne.
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