Love affair with Australia
THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH FELT RIGHT AT HOME DOWN UNDER
Despite his 16 official tours to Australia with the Queen and four visits on his own, Prince Philip’s love affair with Australia truly began during World War II.
After becoming a young naval officer cadet in 1939, he joined the ageing battleship HMS Ramillies as midshipman in 1940, escorting Australian and New Zealand troop ships to Suez in Egypt.
While in England in 1942, the future Duke of Edinburgh met fellow naval officer and Australian, Mike Parker
– and the pair were destined to become best friends.
In May 1945, Philip spent three months in Melbourne while his ship at that time, the HMS Whelp, was being refitted.
Although he had secretly been seeing the young Princess Elizabeth while in England on leave, the dashing prince was a free spirit.
Meeting up with Mike, who was in the same flotilla, they both enjoyed themselves to the maximum.
Although he admitted there were “always armfuls of girls”, Mike later said in an interview: “We were young, we had fun, we had a few drinks, we might have gone dancing and that was it. There have been books and articles galore saying he [Philip] played the field, but I don’t believe it. People say we were screwing around like nobody’s business. Well, we weren’t.” Yet, Philip’s cousin, Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia, wrote in her memoirs years later: “Philip on duty saw enough of the deadly tactics of Japanese suicide pilots to enjoy his periods of shore leave with unlimited energy. Philip, with a golden beard, hit feminine hearts, first in Melbourne and then in Sydney, with terrific impact. “One glimpses him at a Sydney amusement park whooping in the revolving barrels, yelling down the slippery slides and driving a dodgem car with ferocity. “Hosts remember him mixing cocktails of rum, gin and vodka.” On one boozy night in Sydney, Philip was even arrested for urinating in the street by legendary cop Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell.
Close friend Robin Dalton recalled in her memoir that the royal – who inspired the character of Prince Philip in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty
– enjoyed parties thrown by rakish society photographer Joe Fallon at his home in Sydney’s Bellevue Hill.
“He had two special girlfriends,” she said, “a society girl called Sue Other-gee from Melbourne and Sandra Jacques, who was beautiful and modelled and sang in nightclubs. That was a very full love affair.”
A newspaper photographer once followed Philip and Mike to the races, but when the prince told him he was Mike and not himself, the snapper wasted a day following the wrong man!
On another occasion, Philip left a ritzy ball in Sydney with an attractive girl and realised heads were turning.
He drove her to a friend’s house, who took her home in case photographers were waiting there.
Whatever the truth of his amorous adventures, the war was ending and Whelp set sail for England in January 1946, after watching the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, with Philip writing in a visitors’ book for his farewell party: “Whither the storm carries me, I go – a willing guest.”
The following year he married the future Queen Elizabeth II, and the next time he returned to Australia, he was her consort.
“PHILIP, WITH A GOLDEN BEARD, HIT FEMININE HEARTS, FIRST IN MELBOURNE AND THEN IN SYDNEY”
“There is always a small voice that keeps saying, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’ – well did I venture and I gained ” a wonderful time PRINCE PHILIP