When one Went walkabout
He was the king of the royal walkabout and in more than 60 years as Britain’s longest-serving consort he met hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
It was Prince Philip’s insistence that the world’s most famous family should “get out and meet as many ordinary folk as possible” that changed them forever.
It is now commonplace on engagements across the country and on overseas tours, but there was a time when it was alien to the Royal Family.
For the first 18 years of the Queen’s reign, every single person she shook hands with had to be vetted.
But that changed forever when the couple took Prince Charles, then aged 21, and Princess Anne, who was 19, with them on their official tour of
Australia and New Zealand to mark the bicentenary of Captain James Cook’s discovery of the land Down Under.
Philip was determined that his son and daughter got a chance to “shake hands and talk to real people”, rather than just dignitaries and officials.
On March 12, 1970, the couple, with Princess Anne by their side, made history walking around the civic square outside the town hall in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, shaking hands with some of the thousands of well-wishers who had turned out to see them.
Joanne Holland, who was just five years old, actually fainted at meeting the Queen. Later Philip displayed his natural ability to get on with people. When first aider Adrienne O’Leary jokingly told him she carried brandy in her medical kit, Philip told all the well wishers that “brandy was available for anyone who felt like fainting”. Despite security fears, the walkabout was such a success that no royal visit since has been complete without an informal walk to chat and collect gifts. Philip was so adept at meeting the public that four years later he was left to tour Australia alone. The Queen had been forced to temporarily fly back to London after Prime Minister Ted Heath called a General Election. She later returned to continue the royal tour, but Philip at the time is said
to have “rolled up his sleeves and got the job done”, and that he had also “thoroughly enjoyed” doing so.
As well as being the longest-serving consort in British history, the Duke of Edinburgh was also the most travelled, touring the globe with the Queen or on behalf of more than 800 organisations he supported.
He accompanied Her Majesty on more than 250 official overseas visits to over 130 different countries. They visited Australia 16 times, Canada 23 times and New Zealand on 10 occasions.
The former Royal Navy Commander twice sailed around the world on the Royal Yacht Britannia, standing in for the Queen on visits to remote parts of the Commonwealth. With the Duke of Edinburgh at her side, the Queen hosted more than 100 State visits, meeting world leaders from US President John F Kennedy and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama. He never tired of meeting people from all walks of life, despite once selfdeprecatingly suggesting that he wasn’t much good at it. According to Buckingham Palace, it is estimated the
Duke of Edinburgh shook hands with more than 1.1 million people at garden parties and functions held at royal palaces since 1952, from heads of state to ordinary people who have helped the many charities he supported.
Philip also made more than 600 solo foreign visits to 143 countries, in his capacity as patron or president of those 800 charities and groups, which he gave his time to with enthusiasm and zeal.
Even when he was well into his 90s, the Duke was still travelling the length and breadth of Britain fulfilling duties.
But as he neared his retirement from public duty in 2017, he revealed: “I reckon I have done my bit so I want to enjoy myself a bit now, with less responsibility, less frantic rushing about, less preparation, less trying to think of something to say.”