Queen’s letter on early meetings with Philip goes up for auction
A RARE handwritten letter detailing how the Queen and Prince Philip first fell in love is to go under the hammer.
The monarch wrote the letter when she was a 21-yearold princess and recounts the early stages of their relationship – including when they first met.
The two-page letter was written to the author Betty Shew in 1947 – just months before the Queen and Prince Philip were married.
Mrs Shew was writing a book called Royal Wedding as a souvenir of the marriage, and the then Princess Elizabeth agreed to share details of her relationship with the Prince of Greece.
Over two pages, the Princess recalls how she first met Prince Philip in 1939, describes his love of fast cars and how they danced at nightclubs Ciro’s and Quaglino’s.
The letter is written in ink on white paper adorned with the royal crest.
The Queen wrote: “The first time I remember meeting Philip was at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in July 1939, just before the war. (We may have met before at the coronation or the Duchess of Kent’s wedding, but I don’t remember).
“I was 13 years of age and he was 18 and a cadet just due to leave. He joined the Navy at the outbreak of war, and I only saw him very occasionally when he was on leave – I suppose about twice in three years. Then when his uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Mountbatten, were away he spent various weekends with us at Windsor. Then he went to the Pacific and Far East for two years.”
The letter is to go under the hammer at Chippenham Auction Rooms in Wiltshire on April 23.
Auctioneer Richard Edmonds said: “The price of a letter like this is very difficult to predict but it could be in the region of £800 to £1,200.”