Poignant letter shows Philip as young outsider

PRINCE PHILIP never forgot what it was like to find himself in a strange country as a little boy, according to TV presenter Floella Benjamin, who has revealed that she received a poignant letter about his experiences.

‘He wrote me a letter telling me he knew what it was like to come to a foreign country as a child,’ Baroness Benjamin says. ‘After he came here from Greece, he went to Cheam School [aged nine], where he felt like an outsider.’

Lady Benjamin, 72, has told how her childhood was blighted by racial abuse after she moved with her family to Kent from Trinidad in the early 1960s. She confided in the Queen and Prince Philip at a royal event she attended.

‘[The Queen] talked about her family, cooking and the Commonwealth and gave the impression that she wanted to hear about my life,’ she tells Saga magazine.

‘I could tell that she had great empathy. Prince Philip, too.’