DRIVER IDENTITY SURPRISED PC AT WJR CELEBRATION

PRINCE Philip’s arrival at a World Jewish Relief gala in 1993 caused some embarrassment to the policeman who initially denied him entry.

Donor and former trustee Jimmy Strauss recalled standing in his dinner jacket outside the pedestrian entrance to London’s Guildhall when the policeman signalled “no entry” to an incoming motorist.

But then the car window started to come down. “The policeman looked in and there was the Duke of Edinburgh, who had driven himself to the function” in what Mr Strauss believed was “a very early electric vehicle. The policeman quickly saluted and moved the poles and in went the Duke of Edinburgh.”

He was guest of honour at the gala, marking the 60th anniversary of WJR’s previous incarnation, the Central British Fund for German Jewry, a relief agency founded in 1933 to help Jews flee Nazi rule.