SCANDALOUS SOCIETY DIARIES OF KENNETH ROSE

FOR decades, Fleet Street society diarist Kenneth Rose mingled with the Royal Family and the nation’s movers and shakers. But he kept the juiciest gossip for his private journals — which are about to be published. Our extract yesterday revealed the intimate secrets of the Queen Mother. Today, he tells how Prince Philip’s wicked wit and occasional downright rudeness often rubbed people up the wrong way . . .

JANUARY 8, 1955

TO the Albert hall to hear Malcolm Sargent conduct magnificent performance of the Messiah. [Later] Malcolm full of Benjamin Britten stories. When the Duke of edinburgh left the Royal Box after Gloriana, he remarked: ‘Lucky I didn’t marry the first Queen elizabeth — otherwise Britten would now be in the tower awaiting execution.’

JANUARY 10, 1956

DAVID LORAM to dine. Much amusing talk about his work as equerry to the Queen. he says she takes ‘a most minute interest ’ in the running of her household.

‘One cannot move a cushion from one chair to another without her permission.

She knows everybody’s name, arranges table seating plans, introduces all guests to others herself, makes sure a guest sits next to her at dinner the night before he leaves.’

APRIL 22, 1956

GOOD story of Sir henry Marten [P rovost of eton] when giving private tuition to the then Princess elizabeth. every lesson, he would begin by sitting down at the table, opening the book, and saying: ‘Page 96, gentlemen.’

MAY 17, 1956

JIM CILCeNNIN [First Lord of the Admiralty] says it broke Prince Philip’s heart to leave the Royal Navy, which provided an anchor to his life. As he once complained rather pathetically to Jim: ‘I never really had a country.’

MARCH 6, 1957

DINE alone with Jim Cilcennin, then settle down to a great deal of gossip over brandy and cigars.

Prince Philip asked him to go round the world with him in Britannia several months before he left the Admiralty.

he not only wanted a friend and experienced politician, but knew that Jim would be able to have daily treatment for his arthritis

in the sick bay of the Royal Yacht.

SEPTEMBER 17, 1959

At the end of a P rivy Council meeting, the Queen asked [Viscount] Antony head how his Guernsey herd was doing.

head replied: ‘Not at all well. the artificial insemination people sent me a Red P oll bull instead of a Guernsey by mistake.’

[Baroness] Woolton was furious at this flippancy, but the Queen was enchanted by it.

AUGUST 15, 1961

I HAVE Sir A ustin Strutt, Deputy Under-Secretary at the home Office, to lunch at the Savoy . Small, energetic, friendly, indiscreet.

Strutt dislikes Prince Philip — ‘he will bring the whole monarchy down in ruins.’ he tells a story of how he was with Philip on the Royal Y acht during a Channel Islands visit with the Queen and a party of officials.

It was necessary to change plan owing to bad weather.

the Queen did not understand why it was necessary, and asked.

At which Philip, in front of every - body, said to her: ‘haven ’t you the intelligence to realise . . .’

OCTOBER 11, 1961

ON the subject of tony Armstrong-Jones’s peerage, Strutt tells me that Prince Philip was against it.

Princess Margaret not only insisted, but made herself quite ill with rage when she learned that the peerage patent would not be ready in time for t ony to carry out an official engagement in Glasgow as earl of Snowdon. even though special measures were taken to speed up the patent, she had to bear this disappointment.

Strutt thinks that P rince Philip is still interfering too much in official matters.

OCTOBER 13, 1961

LUNCH with [the Queen’s assistant private secretary] Martin Charteris at the Savoy . We discuss P rince Philip. Martin agrees with me that he is arrogant, largely because he is praised so much as an after -dinner speaker. Nor do his staff criticise him as they should.

OCTOBER 25, 1961

A CHARACTERISTIC story about Prince Philip. the other day he came to the Café Royal to present awards to Regent Street shopkeepers for export-window displays, or some such thing.

Among those presented was Mr Rayne of the shoe firm. the following conversation ensued:

Prince: ‘ What do you do, Mr Rayne?’ Rayne: ‘I make shoes, sir.’ Prince: ‘ Are you the company’s export manager?’

Rayne: ‘No, as a matter of fact I am Chairman of the company , which has the honour to make the Queen’s shoes.’

Prince: ‘that’s why she’s always complaining about her feet, no doubt.’ P rince Philip simply cannot realise the harm that this perpetual banter does him.

APRIL 16, 1962

At 12, I see Michael P arker [friend and former private secretary of Prince Philip] at his office in Conduit Street. he asks me how I think Prince Philip is getting on.

I mention one or two of the obvious failings — his running - down of British industry when abroad; the impression he gives of despising the Press; and his tendency to drop people, having previously taken them up with some degree of intimacy.

Jim Cilcennin [who went around the world with Philip on Britannia] complained to me often about this during the last year of his life.

the trouble is, adds P arker, that the Royal F amily have few friends and not many acquaintances.

Part of P rince Philip ’s problem actually springs from shyness. But this could be avoided by a staff of skilled advisers.

JUNE 1, 1966

WHEN the Queen came to open the new P ost Office t ower in Marylebone the other day , [Labour Postmaster General] Anthony Wedgwood Benn suggested to her that some State Banquets might in future be held there.

there is seating for 120 in the revolving restaurant. the Queen could sit in the stationary part of the tower, with her guests revolving about her. this would do away with protocol, as everyone would get a chance of exchanging remarks with the Queen every 20 minutes or so.

DECEMBER 17, 1967

HANS VON heRWARth, former German Ambassador, tells me that on the occasions both of the death of George VI and of the Queen ’s Coronation, the Queen received more letters from Germany than from any other country outside the Commonwealth.

he was most touched on the occasion of the Coronation in 1953 by the Queen’s kindness.

his little daughter, then aged ten, complained to him that it was a pity she had not been asked, too, ‘as it is a girl who is being crowned’.

he mentioned this to the British high Commissioner in Germany, as a joke. But an invitation duly arrived, together with a seat for her in the stand outside the Abbey.

MAY 11, 1968

SELWYN LLO YD [ 63- year - old former tory Foreign Secretary and Chancellor] tells me that P rince Philip said to him recently , ‘What, are you still alive?’ Later , he apolo - gised to Selwyn for his rudeness.

FEBRUARY 6, 1971

I TALK to [the Queen ’s former assistant private secretary] edward Ford about the Suez Crisis in 1956. As in almost every other house in the country, it caused a split in the secretariat at Buckingham Palace.

edward and [her assistant private secretary] Martin Charteris were against it, [her private secretary] Michael Adeane was for it.

their conflicting attitudes puzzled the Queen, who said: ‘I have three Private Secretaries and all of them give me different advice.’

JUNE 30, 1973

I HEAR that when Charles de Gaulle came on his State V isit to england, he went down to W indsor and the Queen took him and harold Macmillan round all the pictures in the Waterloo Chamber.

At the end of the tour , de Gaulle said to the Queen: ‘ Alors, Madame, was it necessary to have all these messieurs to defeat Napoleon?’

JULY 20, 1974

At the gala at Covent Garden last Wednesday, Prince eddie [now Duke of kent] says that not only were the speeches far too long , but that