A prince among the people
Barbara Larsen, 85, has been collecting royal memorabilia since she was four, and her huge collection includes books and pictures of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
Following his death on Friday, Larson said the Queen would not have been ‘‘able to do what she’s done without the duke’’.
‘‘He was the backstop for her. She was lucky to have him.’’
Larson, who has more than 15,000 books and 300 scrapbooks on royals, said she liked the ‘‘old duke’’, who passed away, aged 99, at Windsor Castle.
‘‘We knew he was going to die, but I wanted him to wait until he reached 100 so he could get a card from the Queen. June’s his birthday. It’s a shame.’’
And Larsen does not think Prince Philip would mind his funeral being curtailed by Covid19. He did not want a ‘‘big flash’’ event, so he would have been happy with whatever, Larsen, from New Plymouth, said.
Stratford’s Ian McAlpine was lucky enough to meet Prince Philip in Wellington in 1970, when the duke awarded McAlpine the Gold Duke of Edinburgh award.
To a youngster Prince Philip seemed like a ‘‘giant of a man’’, McAlpine said.
‘‘He stepped on my foot, and he laughed and said, ‘Please get your foot from under mine.’ ‘‘Then he said, ‘I apologise’.’’ New Plymouth’s Lee McCracken also met the duke when she got a Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award.
She went to Government House in Wellington in 1981, when she was 19, she said.
‘‘I remember him being very witty and very easy to talk to.
‘‘I certainly wasn’t scared or
nervous.’’ They talked about her job and the challenges she had faced to get the award, McCracken said, including riding a Raleigh 20 bike from New Plymouth to Urenui, and walking almost to Inglewood from New Plymouth.
‘‘He put people at ease. ‘‘He moved around the room and chatted to everyone.’’
McCracken said she was ‘‘really thankful’’ for the scheme, which she did through New Plymouth Girls’ High School.
‘‘It led me into different challenges that wouldn’t have been open to me otherwise.’’
Prince Philip came to Taranaki a few times and made quite an impression, especially on his first visit nearly 70 years ago.
Thousands of people turned
out to see the Queen and the duke in January 1954, six months after Elizabeth had been crowned.
Stories from the Taranaki Daily News and theTaranaki Herald showed the enthusiasm people had for the couple, with headlines such as ‘‘Taranaki has caught Royal visit fever’’.
The couple arrived to a public welcome at Pa¯tea on Friday, January 8, before driving to Ha¯ wera.
After a stop in Stratford they went on to New Plymouth, where they stayed at the Criterion Hotel. The building, at 61 Devon Street West, was demolished in 1986.
The next day they went to a civic reception in Pukekura Park.
About 18,000 people packed in to see them, and one newspaper report said the duke acted as a
‘‘personable foil to the serene dignity of the Queen’’. ‘‘Duke knew how to get folk to talk’’, is how one headline put it.
The reports said one of the iwi representatives, Mr H. Watene, from Waitara, told the duke ‘‘that he had several children and ‘they were pretty much well all the army.’ Mr Watene wore a black coat and bowler hat. In his hat was the Raukura feather, emblem of peace.
The Duke asked St John ambulance officer Mr N.P. Milne if there had been any casualties at the event. One person had fainted, he was told, and another had fallen from the stands.
‘‘Any broken bones?’’ the duke asked.
‘‘No, Sir,’’ was the answer. Another report told of how a woman ‘‘who was perching on the ground was completely surprised by the duke, who came up to her, it appeared, to help her up.
When close to her, the duke noticed she was holding a camera which immediately promoted him to say, ‘oh, I’m sorry.’
‘‘The duke made a few steps backward, posed for the woman with a handsome smile and then came over to shake hands.’’
In Ha¯wera, the Daily News reported five-year-old Jeanette
Fields, daughter of Mr and Mrs l Fields, of Mokoia, drew special waves from the Queen and duke as they drove past.
The duke noticed Jeanette when she was seated ‘‘atop wool bales holding a lamb in the meat and wool section of the country people’s decoration.
According to the report ‘‘he waved and nudged the Queen who turned and smiled, then waved at little Jeanette.’’
And in Stratford it was reported: ‘‘Looking north from the dais, the Queen and duke could see the 10,000 people seated on the stands on either side of the 400-yard stretch of Broadway, and saw also thousands more crowding there where the stands had ceased.’’
Prince Philip talked to a group of marching girls in Inglewood and asked Dorothy Julian, who was wearing five medals, how long she had been in the ‘‘marching sport’’.
Five years, sir, she replied. Then the duke noticed Dorothy Kuklinski who was displaying a uniform full of badges and ‘‘he exclaimed to the amusement of all: How long have YOU been marching then?’’
She was wearing 48 medals. Her reply was not recorded.