MAN OF MANY TALENTS
prince philip enjoyed a diverse range of interests during his lifetime, from painting portraits to piloting planes
When Phillip Schofield met Prince Philip to film a documentary, the TV presenter described the nonagenarian as having “boundless energy”, which he said exhausted everyone around him.
Keeping busy was evidently one of the Duke of Edinburgh’s mantras and, throughout his life, when he wasn’t engaged in official duties, he enjoyed a vast range of pastimes – many of them not for the faint of heart.
Philip had enjoyed carriagedriving for many years. He got into the sport after retiring as prince of the polo field at the age of 50, due to arthritis, and went on to represent the UK in three European and six world carriage-driving championships. As president of the International Equestrian Federation from 1964 to 1986, he was also involved in defining many of the rules used for competitive carriage-driving.
“It was great fun, yes – we went all over the place,” he later said, reflecting on his competitive days with the team. He added, “I went to Hungary twice, to Poland, the Netherlands – it was very entertaining.”
Writing about his passion for carriage-driving in his 2004 book 30 Years On And Off The Box Seat, Philip – then 83 – said, “I’m getting old. My reactions are getting slower and my memory is unreliable. But, I have not lost the sheer pleasure of driving a team through the British countryside.”
It wasn’t without its dangers though, and he once admitted,
“I didn’t handle the obstacles very well.” In fact, Philip described a nasty accident that occurred at Sandringham when two horses parted company with the carriage and he was “heaved bodily across the ditch and dumped more or less on dry land”.
As a big fan of cricket, the royal was captain of the team at his Scottish boarding school Gordonstoun and was once referred to as “England’s greatest uncapped cricketer”.
In 1953, he scored a respectable 18 runs during a celebrity match against the Duke of Norfolk held near Arundel Castle in West Sussex.
Meanwhile, during holidays on the Balmoral estate in Scotland, Philip would often indulge in a spot of fly fishing for salmon and trout on the River Dee.
He also liked to go out shooting to cull the local deer population, and his Boxing Day pheasant hunts at Sandringham in Norfolk were legendary.
And yet Philip maintained a lifelong appreciation of wildlife and conservation and was a keen photographer of birds. In 1962, Philip published Birds From Britannia, a collection of photos of some of the world’s most elusive breeds. He took some of the images during far-flung trips to the Indian Ocean and the Antarctic.
A prolific writer, Philip was the author of 21 books. He liked to collect books and had a personal library of 13,000 mainly non-fiction tomes, including a specialist collection of around 2,000 wildlife titles. After dining with the Queen, he would often retire to his study to read in the evenings while she watched her favourite TV programmes.
Having served in the Royal Navy for 13 years, the prince loved messing about in boats. During the 1960s, he would often bring his classic oceanracing yacht Bloodhound along on family holidays and was keen to teach his children how to sail. He also regularly competed for the Queen’s Cup during Cowes Week, just off the
Isle of Wight.
Flying was another hobby that Philip adored and with his private pilot’s licence, he clocked up nearly 6,000 hours before retiring his wings at the age of 76. On terra firma, he liked to nip around
London unnoticed in his gas-powered Metrocab.
Something of a barbecue obsessive, Philip loved cooking alfresco during family picnics at Balmoral. Using a griddle of his own design, he would whip up a steak Diane, which the Queen would then serve. Former royal chef Darren Mcgrady recalled, “We would prepare the ingredients... and send them all to the barbecue site in Tupperware boxes.” Not ones for wastage, game shot on the estate would be marinaded under Philip’s strict instructions, ready for him to barbecue that evening.
Philip’s keen eye for design came to light on several occasions. In the 1950s, he designed the interior of the Royal Yacht Britannia. He also designed cufflinks, coins and jewellery for the Queen, including a gold and gem-studded bracelet to mark their fifth wedding anniversary in 1952. It incorporates the letters E and P entwined.
But one of the Duke’s lasting legacies is the stunning stainedglass windows that he designed for the private chapel in Windsor Castle following the fire in 1992.
They show a firefighter battling the blaze and a worker rescuing paintings from the flames.
Over the years, Philip amassed an impressive collection of British and Commonwealth art, many of which were by Norfolk artist Edward Seago, who tutored him in the subject. The Duke also collected cartoon drawings, some of which even featured royal occasions.
A skilled artist himself, Philip’s oil paintings were once described by an art expert as “exactly what you’d expect – totally direct, no hanging about”. He would sign his work “Phi”, which is the Greek for “P”.
In 1965, Philip produced a portrait of his wife titled
The Queen At Breakfast, Windsor Castle.
The painting captured the monarch in a very informal pose at breakfast in the dining room of their Berkshire residence. A fitting and rather precious keepsake from a man who devoted his life to his wife and family.