Allison Pearson
‘It’s saddening to see Prince Philip go, but what he stood for need never die’
Although the funeral on Saturday in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, will be a tremendously sad occasion – you’re a better man than I am if you manage to stay dry-eyed during Eternal Father Strong to Save – the deceased has thoughtfully provided something which is sure to raise a smile. I ask you, who else but Prince Philip would design his own hearse?
No gun carriage will bear his coffin. The precise nature of the vehicle that will carry the Duke of Edinburgh on his final journey is unknown, but it has been made to his own specification and sounds as if it could be three parts Land Rover to two parts open-top battle bus, with a dash of his beloved London cab for good measure. Absolutely perfect, in fact, for its cargo: practical, fiercely unsentimental, robust, hands-on, ingenious, quietly eccentric and defiantly irreverent.
Many of Philip’s infamous “gaffes” turned out to be conversational ice-breakers at stilted occasions. The “Dukemobile” will continue that proud tradition. Even in death, the man his grandson Harry calls “a legend of banter” will have the last laugh.
As the Prime Minister said in the Commons, Prince Philip would, most likely, have been embarrassed by the national outpouring of grief (“Oh, do get on with it!”) In other circumstances, he could well have been among the 116,000 viewers who complained to the BBC about its blanket coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh’s death. Apparently, some people were dismayed that Masterchef was pulled from the schedules. I would be happy to endure a royal casualty a week if it would keep that self-satisfied chipmunk Gregg Wallace off our screens, but there’s no accounting for taste.
Is 12 hours to sum up 99 years really excessive? I don’t think so. In 2002, the BBC was accused of underplaying the death of the Queen Mother; this time, it erred on the side of generosity and respect. That was well done. Too many broadcast hours are squandered on lives of candyfloss insubstantiality. Even the most ardent republican would struggle to claim that the Duke’s history lacked heft.
It was a pleasure to learn so much that we didn’t know about him. People were amazed that the “cantankerous old sod” (his own description) had such a remarkable life, from the infant fleeing Corfu in an orange crate to the 19-year-old whose job it was to train the searchlight on enemy ships at Cape Matapan in 1941, to the author of books on Christianity and philosophy, to the impatient moderniser urging his juddering Austin Maxi of an adopted country to be at the forefront of science and technology. Not to mention the day job as main prop for the longest reigning monarch in history.
I loved the funny story he told about being on a State visit to Japan with the Queen. Defying his reputation for tactlessness, the Duke smiled politely when asked what he made of the country, considering it best not to mention that he’d been there before
– at Tokyo Bay in September 1945, when Japanese forces surrendered to the Allies.
You can just imagine the slew of self-congratulatory press releases about “service” issued by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s PR people, and the interviews about post-traumatic stress if anything of half that magnitude happened to them. (Thank goodness Meghan is too pregnant to attend the funeral. At least we won’t have to watch her looking soulful, mourning the man while besmirching the very institution he had made his life’s work by doing an interview with Oprah as he lay terminally ill in hospital.) It spoke volumes for Philip’s character that it took the leaving of this life for his achievements to become public.
Perhaps what we have been mourning this past week is a version of ourselves that the Duke personified, a Britishness of duty, reticence, sparky humour and don’t make a fuss which barely exists any more. A lost world where woke still meant “not asleep”. You glimpsed it in the battalion of black cabs lining the Mall from Admiralty Arch to Buckingham Palace. The cabbies have had a dire year, but they gladly gave up an afternoon’s takings to pay their respects to the Guv’nor. It brought a lump to the throat.
Instead of mourning the endangered species that the passionate royal conservationist represented, the best memorial to him now would be to re-embrace his values and his work ethic. How about submitting each fashionable new idea to one acid test: what would Prince Philip say?
For instance, picture the Duke’s reaction to the news this week that soldiers have been banned from referring to each other as “lads” in the Army’s latest gender equality drive. Troops from 22 Engineer Regiment were told not to use the world “lads” to the, er, lads, because it may cause offence, “even if no women are present”. What would Prince Philip say? “Bunkum!”
And what would Prince Philip say to the 4.7million workers still on furlough? “Get back to work and pull this bally country out of the mud!”
For his 90th birthday, I remember the Duke doing an interview with Fiona Bruce. It was excruciating. Not that Bruce did anything wrong, she just wrongly assumed that her subject would be interested in talking about himself. She began by saying: “You’re 90 this year.” To which the Duke of Edinburgh replied: “Well done …”
Next, she asked if there was anything of which the Queen’s consort was particularly proud. “No,” he replied.
Clearly seeing her entire career flash before her eyes, a flailing Bruce then pressed the Duke on what he thought about his life: “Who cares what I think?”
A brusque, rather alarming performance, it did perfectly capture the philosophy which the Prince outlined to his excellent biographer Gyles Brandreth. “It’s a big mistake to think about yourself. No one is interested in you in the long run. Don’t court popularity. It doesn’t last. Remember that the attention comes because of the position you are privileged to hold, not because of who you are. If you think it’s all about you, you’ll never be happy.”
Instinctively, the Duke of Edinburgh grasped how badly the British public would take Prince Harry and his wife whining about their mistreatment from a Californian mansion and how dangerous such brattish, self-indulgent behaviour could be to the monarchy. Although he regarded his grandson to be “a good man”, he thought the interview with Oprah was “madness” and “no good would come of it”. Right again, Sir.
Those who admired the Duke of Edinburgh – and there are millions of us – should honour his memory by fighting back against the warped cult of woke that regards Philip and his ilk as racist, sexist and all the other hysterical “ists” they deploy to silence decent people with a love of country and a belief that there are more important things in this life than self. How dare the toddler Marxists on Twitter accuse the generation that defeated fascism of being fascists. Good men died in order that they could take their freedom for granted. Those who lived to tell the tale, like Prince Philip, never took it for granted.
On Saturday, there is no Plan B for the funeral cortège, if it rains or even snows. In keeping with the wishes of its designer, the open-top hearse will, of course, bugger on regardless.
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing,” as Prince Philip told his children. How very sad we will be to see him go, but what he stood for need never die.
It’s up to us now.
The Duke would have been embarrassed by this week’s national outpouring of grief