COMMENT
IT has long been fashionable for people of a certain political persuasion to dismiss Prince Philip as a casually bigoted man who lived a life of unimaginable privilege.
He was seen by some as a symbol of an out-of-touch generation and an institution that regarded the British as superior. But these caricatures are far from the truth.
The Duke of Edinburgh was many things: blunt and often gruff. As a former military man, he could be fearsome at times. Visitors to his office might see him march in occasionally and give his private secretary the most dreadful dressing down before moving on as if nothing had happened.
But he respected people from whatever walk of life they came, noting regularly that those who had more junior jobs were often linchpins of their communities, running sports clubs and other groups and, thus, some of the most important people in Britain.
He could also be incredibly kind and caring, particularly towards children, wherever he went.
He famously didn’t suffer fools gladly, demanding clear thinking, and was often slow to take advice.
Long before he turned his Land Rover over in a crash near Sandringham, in January, 2019, his family worried about his erratic driving, which also gave his staff and police bodyguards palpitations.
Philip was also certainly prone to putting his foot in his mouth and, as a royal correspondent, it was part of my job to monitor what he said to people in the hope that there might
be something controversial. But if truth be told, his off-the-cuff remarks were often an attempt to use humour to break the ice and put people at ease. And during his last few years on duty he had become such a national treasure even we could no longer stomach the idea of turning one of the jokes into a gaffe.
In 2007, he and the Queen went to Uganda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and hundreds of thousands of Ugandans lined the 20-mile route from Entebbe Airport to the capital, Kampala.
“I hear there were up to a million people lining the route. Were they all waving flags?” I asked him when he and the Queen arrived in Kampala. “I’ve no idea. It was dark. I could only see their teeth,” he said, flashing me a smile.
If such comments were enough to provoke nervousness in those worried about him being accused of racism, Philip was really nothing of the sort. He believed wholeheartedly in creating a level playing field for people from all backgrounds and through his work spreading The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in 144 countries around the world.
It did not, however, change his view of young people. At a Buckingham Palace event to mark the 50th anniversary of the award scheme in 2006, I asked him whether he had noticed great changes in young people over that half century. “Not really. They’re still ignorant,” he replied.
His uncle Lord Mountbatten was the last Viceroy of India and Philip, too, happily did his duty, overseeing the dismantling of the British Empire and its replacement with a Commonwealth of nations.
At a Buckingham Palace reception to launch the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, in 2012, he was chatting to a young black woman. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Tanzania,” she replied. “Oh, I liberated Tanzania,” he told her.
Sure enough, old newsreel footage and library pictures show the Duke representing the Queen at the nation’s independence celebrations in December, 1961.
He came to Britain as a penniless Greek prince, a stateless refugee. Staying with a succession of admittedly wealthy relatives as a child, he was fond of describing his residence as No Fixed Abode.
He was from a generation that just got on with it, no matter the family tragedies that ensued. A man’s man, he joined the Royal Navy and took up arms against fascism, fighting on the opposite side to most of his family.
He will be remembered for many things but he should be acknowledged as a champion of the underprivileged, who epitomised the best of British values in a multiracial society.