Philip hailed ‘wonderful figurehead’ as he bows out on last engagement
The Duke of Edinburgh has perhaps been best known for his legendary gaffes. He has shocked and sometimes delighted the public with his outspoken comments and clangers. His reputation for plain speaking has often led to controversy, but he has been branded
THE Duke of Edinburgh’s final solo royal engagement was hailed as “historic” by a Royal Marine whose feat of strength and endurance was celebrated by the retiring royal.
As a former Royal Navy officer Philip’s last official event, after almost 70 years championing his own causes and charities, fittingly featured men from the Royal Marines – an integral part of the Navy.
The Duke was praised for his role as Captain General of the Royal Marines by a senior officer who described the 96-year-old as a “wonderful figurehead for all Royal Marines to look up to”.
The event marked the end of the 1664 Global Challenge, a series of exploits that have pushed marines from the Corps to their physical limits in aid of the Royal Marines Charity.
The challenge, which recognises 1664, the year the Corps was founded, has seen Royal Marines all over the world fundraising, including Corporal Will Gingell, 33, and Corporal Jamie Thompson, 31, who have run 1,664 miles over 100 days.
Cpl Thompson, from Carlisle but based in Plymouth, whose epic marathon ended earlier, said: “This is historic because this is the Duke’s last royal engagement and we’re a part of it, the Royal Marines are a part of it – so it’s an absolute honour.”
The Queen’s Consort announced in May he would be retiring from royal engagements, a decision which was fully supported by the Queen and was not medically related.
Buckingham Palace has stressed although the Duke’s diary of engagements has come to an end he may decide to attend certain events, alongside the Queen, from time to time.
The Queen’s public schedule continues as normal but other members of the Royal Family will step up in support of the monarch in her role as head of state. The historic day began with the Duke stood on a dais in the palace’s forecourt where he received the royal salute from an honour guard of Royal Marines.
Lieutenant Colonel Gary Green, who devised the 1664 Global Challenge, said: “It’s an honour for the Armed Forces having the Duke of Edinburgh’s last public engagement with the Corps and the Royal Navy – it’s brilliant, we’re delighted.”
He added: “The Duke of Edinburgh is all about challenges, he’s all about charity work and helping people and having somebody like the Duke as head of the Royal Marines, it just helps the Corps with our own challenges. With somebody who’s head of the Corps, who’s quite exceptional in what he does, it makes the Corps exceptional, it builds our Commando spirit and he’s a wonderful figurehead for all Royal Marines to look up to.”
As part of the 1664 Global Challenge Royal Marines from around the globe have also been taking part in extreme events including a 34-mile swim underwater and a company of Royal Marines lifting more than 20,000 tonnes and running 10,000 kilometres.
“British women can’t cook” (in Britain in 1966).
“What do you gargle with, pebbles?” (speaking to singer Tom Jones after the 1969 Royal Variety Performance).
“I declare this thing open, whatever it is” (on a visit to Canada in 1969).
“Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed” (during the 1981 recession).
“If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it” (at a 1986 World Wildlife Fund meeting).
“It looks like a tart’s bedroom” (on seeing plans for the Duke and Duchess of York’s house at Sunninghill Park in 1988).
“Yak, yak, yak; come on get a move on” (shouted from the deck of Britannia in Belize in 1994 to the Queen who was chatting to her hosts on the quayside).
“We didn’t have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun, asking ‘Are you all right? Are you sure you don’t have a ghastly problem?’ You just got on with it” (about the Second World War commenting on modern stress counselling for servicemen in 1995).
“How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?” (to a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland, during a 1995 walkabout).
“If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?” (in 1996, amid calls to ban firearms after the Dunblane shooting).
“Bloody silly fool!” (in 1997, referring to a Cambridge University car park attendant who did not recognise him).
“It looks as if it was put in by an Indian” (pointing at an old-fashioned fusebox in a factory near Edinburgh in 1999).
“Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf” (to young deaf people in Cardiff, in 1999, referring to a school’s steel band).
“They must be out of their minds” (in the Solomon Islands, in 1982, when he was told that the annual population growth was 5%).
“You are a woman, aren’t you?” (In Kenya, in 1984, after accepting a small gift from a local woman).
“If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed” (to British students in China, during the 1986 state visit).
“Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species in the world” (in Thailand, in 1991, after accepting a conservation award).
“Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease” (in Australia, in 1992, when asked to stroke a Koala).
“You can’t have been here that long - you haven’t got a pot belly” (to a Briton in Budapest, Hungary, in 1993). “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?” (to a wealthy islander in the Cayman Islands in 1994). “You managed not to get eaten, then?” (suggesting to a student in 1998 who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea that tribes there were still cannibals).
In Germany, in 1997, he welcomed German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at a trade fair as “Reichskanzler” – the last German leader who used the title was Adolf Hitler.
“You’re too fat to be an astronaut” (to 13-year-old Andrew Adams who told Philip he wanted to go into space. Salford, 2001).
“I wish he’d turn the microphone off” (muttered at the Royal Variety Performance as he watched Sir Elton John perform, 2001).
“Do you still throw spears at each other?” (In Australia in 2002 talking to a successful aborigine entrepreneur).
“You look like a suicide bomber” (to a young female officer wearing a bullet-proof vest on Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, in 2002).
“Do you know they’re now producing eating dogs for anorexics?” (to a blind woman outside Exeter Cathedral, 2002).
“Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?” (to designer Stephen Judge about his tiny goatee beard in July 2009).
“There’s a lot of your family in tonight” (after looking at the name badge of businessman Atul Patel at a Palace reception for British Indians in October 2009).
“Do you work at a strip club?” (to 24-year-old Barnstaple Sea Cadet Elizabeth Rendle when she told him she also worked in a nightclub in March 2010).
“Do you have a pair of knickers made out of this?” pointing to some tartan (to Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie at a papal reception in Edinburgh in September 2010).
“Bits are beginning to drop off” (on approaching his 90th birthday, 2011).
“How many people have you knocked over this morning on that thing?” (meeting disabled David Miller who drives a mobility scooter at the Valentine Mansion in Redbridge in March 2012).
“I would get arrested if I unzipped that dress” (to 25-yearold council worker Hannah Jackson, who was wearing a dress with a zip running the length of its front, on a Jubilee visit to Bromley, Kent, in May 2012).
“The Philippines must be half empty as you’re all here running the NHS” (on meeting a Filipino nurse at a Luton hospital in February 2013).
“(Children) go to school because their parents don’t want them in the house” (prompting giggles from Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban after campaigning for the right of girls to go to school without fear - October 2013).
“Just take the f***ing picture” (losing patience with an RAF photographer at events to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain July 2015).
“You look starved” (to a pensioner on a visit to the Charterhouse almshouse for elderly men – February 2017).