Prince Philip shows us all how to age gracefully

The Duke of Edinburgh is 98 today. Since he reads the Telegraph, he might see this, so let me say: “Happy birthday, sir!” I suppose it’s bad form to say “Many happy returns” to someone as ancient as Prince Philip, but the oldest verified man ever was Jiroemon Kimura (1897–2013) of Japan who lived to the age of 116 years and 54 days, so with luck HRH could be with us for a few years yet.

I interviewed him at the time of his mother-in-law Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s centenary in 2000, and he told me then that he had “no desire whatsoever” to live to 100. “I can’t imagine anything worse,” he yelped. “Bits of me are falling off already.”

Nineteen years on, and that New Year car crash notwithstanding, he appears to be in fine fettle, still turning up for family weddings, still walking without a stick and driving his carriage with gusto at the Royal Windsor Horse Show last month.

After 70 years of public service, he is not missing the flummery of royal life. It would have been fun, of course, to have seen him and Donald Trump together at Buckingham Palace last week and to have listened in on their banter, but Prince Philip has sat

through 112 state banquets at the palace. He did not need another one. Now, understandably, he wants to be left alone to enjoy his retirement, at Wood Farm on the Sandringham Estate, doing his own thing in his own way.

He and the Queen seem to spend a fair bit of time apart, but they always have done. “Remember, he’s a sailor,” one of his closest friends once said to me. “They come in on the tide.”

It’s almost impossible to understand one’s own marriage let alone anyone else’s, but I get the impression that our sovereign and her consort have a mutual understanding and respect that are profound. And he still makes her laugh.

They reflect their generation, of course. They are not a touchy-feely, let-it-all-hang-out couple. There are no photographs in any archive in the world of the pair of them holding hands, but as Antoine de Saintexupéry observed: “Love consists not necessarily in gazing into one another’s eyes, but in looking in the same direction.”

Someone (who ought to know) told me that the Queen enjoys watching Gogglebox, the Channel 4 television series that features people watching television. That’s making me even more apprehensive as I embark on a six-week stint perched on a sofa with my friend, the actress Sheila Hancock, being filmed by hidden cameras for a series of Celebrity Gogglebox. (Don’t let the word “celebrity” fool you. You won’t have heard of most of us either.)

My normal television viewing is very limited. I am not the adventurous type. Unlike, it appears, most of my former parliamentary colleagues, I have never taken recreational drugs. I don’t drink alcohol. I have even given up coffee. I do not crave excitement, which is why the television I watch as a rule is cosy stuff, like The One Show, The Durrells and Antiques Roadshow.

I know I should be ready to live more dangerously which is why I said yes to Gogglebox.

I am particularly eager to catch a late-night show I have not dared watch at home: Naked Attraction. i understand it features totally naked young people looking at one another and telling the presenter who they fancy and which bits of who they fancy they fancy most. Apparently, it’s disarmingly engaging. I am looking forward to it, and perhaps the Queen is, too. But Her Majesty can rest assured; when the celebrity version of Naked Attraction comes along, I won’t be taking part.

I was delighted to see that the actor Simon Russell Beale, 58, was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honours. No one speaks Shakespeare better and he has done the cultural state much service with many years of wonderful and not hugely lucrative work at the National Theatre. But why no knighthood yet for David Suchet, 73? With 70 episodes of Poirot under his belt, Suchet has enhanced the reputation of British television around the world and, as his recent stage performances in the plays of Arthur Miller and Eugene O’neill have demonstrated, he is as meticulous and powerful a performer as ever trod the boards.

So, why no “K” for Suchet? I can tell you. He hasn’t yet given us his King Lear. Years ago a bigwig in the Department of Culture explained to me that “we don’t really consider a serious actor is ready for a K until we’ve seen his Lear”.

I mentioned this once to my friend Nicholas Parsons, host of Just A Minute and surely worthy of recognition as the world’s oldest radio broadcaster. Nicholas responded eagerly, “But do tell them I’m still doing my Lear.” And he is.

At 95, Parsons is currently touring the country with his one-man show about the life and work of the poet and artist, Edward Lear.

He appears to be in fine fettle, still turning up for family weddings and still walking without a stick