Officer Philip? He was very randy recalls his Navy comrade aged 97
THE Duke of Edinburgh finally met his match at a royal engagement yesterday when he was reunited with a former Naval comrade who remembered him being “randy”.
For almost 70 years the “Duke of Hazard” has been the master of witty one-liners which sometimes throw a spanner in the works and often lighten the mood at formal engagements where the Queen’s presence often leaves hosts nervous.
But for once he was outPhilipped by a fellow sailor as he joined Her Majesty at a college centenary event.
Commander Keith Evans, now 97, met Philip in 1947 – the year that, as Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, he married the then Princess Elizabeth.
Asked for his recollections yesterday of Philip, who turns 96 next month, Cdr Evans replied: “He was a bit randy – but you had better not put that down.” A few minutes later, however, a sense of mischief got the better of him but with one important clarification: “Not ‘a bit’,” he said. “Very.”
Cdr Evans, who served on battleship HMS Hood, reminisced with the Duke about the good old days and showed him a letter that Philip had sent him – addressed to “My dear Scratch” – after he had written to the Prince congratulating him on his engagement.
It was the royal couple’s fourth visit to fee-paying Pangbourne College, near Reading, Berkshire – which was founded by shipbroker Sir Thomas Lane Devitt as the Nautical College.
Mischievous
His vision was to prepare boys to be officers in the Merchant Navy but by 1969 the college shed much of the nautical training and was renamed.
Cdr Evans, the oldest living Pangbournian, first met Philip – who had come to Britain as Prince Philip of Greece – when they were both at HMS Royal Arthur, a shore establishment at Corsham, Wiltshire.
“He was 18 months junior,” he said. “He was Lieutenant. I was about to be promoted to Lieutenant Commander. He was then Lieutenant Mountbatten – they had got rid of all that Greek nonsense.”
In February 1947, Philip renounced his rights to the Greek throne and became a British subject. By the summer his engagement to Princess Elizabeth was announced and the couple married that year.
Cdr Evans, from Haslemere, Surrey, chose not to remind Philip of the time he deliberately kept him waiting to see the captain of HMS Arthur.
The Prince wanted to visit his future father-in-law, King George VI, to confirm that he wanted to marry his daughter.
Cdr Evans recalled: “I happened to be secretary to the captain. The captain, who was a little mischievous, said to me, ‘He is a bit junior to you. Let’s keep him waiting in your office while we have a glass of gin.’ Which we did.”
Thomas Garnier, Pangbourne’s headmaster, said of Philip: “I thought that he had plenty of spirit still. I imagine that he could go on for a while.”