He will not simply disappear from us
The announcement that Prince Philip is to step down from royal engagements is a pragmatic one. For the Duke of Edinburgh is clearly still in good health.
I saw him in action earlier this week. On Tuesday, he attended the memorial service for Dame Anne Griffiths, his long-serving archivist who had joined the Duke’s staff in 1952 as a lady clerk. As the Duke entered St Mark’s Church, Regent’s Park, he had the sprightly gait of a man of 45. The service lasted over an hour, after which he walked gamely out again.
I am always impressed by how quickly he walks, one hand behind his back, as of old. He still cuts a dapper figure, too, always with well-cut suits and well-polished shoes; this helps give the impression of a much younger man. Someone seeing him for the first time would not put him down as a nonagenarian.
While I am not too concerned by his announcement, ahead of his 96th birthday next month, the timing has several merits. It comes in a week when there is good TV footage of him around – not least at Lord’s on Tuesday, when he made a jolly joke about being “an experienced plaqueunveiler”.
Nor does the announcement withdraw him from any engagements already planned; it just means he can turn things down from the autumn onwards. It is not in his nature to disappoint people or let them down.
Around the time he turned 90, the Duke let it be known that he wanted to take life easier and enjoy himself. Few have detected any time when he seemed to do less.
I rather suspect that now, with the pressure off, he may make a habit of showing up at events as a surprise.
He will hand-over presidencies, patronages, step down from regiments and so forth, but I cannot see him idle. He is not for the chaise longue. He will not do as Pope Benedict and disappear from public view altogether.
The Duke has long used public engagements as sport, at which he can be more combative than on state occasions. With little time to engage with all those in attendance, he tends to go in with all guns blazing, displaying that good-natured spiritedness that has kept him young.
A few years ago, I was involved in the Jubilee Greenway, a 37-mile walking and cycling route around London, which the Queen opened as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations; the Duke used the occasion to poke gentle fun at it.
After some merciless ribbing of the project, he turned to me for a final salvo: “So,” he said, “are you going to walk it, then?” Only when I replied that I had walked every inch of it did a grin cross his face; he was finally satisfied.
His love of a good argument at a public event has meant on occasion that he has supported contrary views at almost the same time. “They’ve no right to be there” can give way to: “It’s a free world, why shouldn’t they be there?”
The Duke has a clear, disciplined and well-organised brain that can cut through the nonsense of a public engagement. I once spent part of an evening telling him stories about a much-married socialite. He laughed a lot, but when it was over, I heard him say, quite quietly: “Pointless…”. I took his point. For this alone, his presence at many such future events will be sorely missed.
In a way, his retirement is a curious thing to be discussing at all. The Duke has already put in an extra 31 years of work more than the average man; he is about to turn 96. When members of his family came from as far afield as Canada to celebrate his 90th birthday in 2011, many of them said that it was great to be able to meet while he was there to thank – and not at a funeral.
In a sense, we all have that opportunity today, and should seize it.
Hugo Vickers is a royal biographer