Thank you letter from 14-year-old prince from Greece for hospitality in Edinburgh
He was a prince of Greece who would go on to become Duke of Edinburgh.
And now details and pictures have emerged of a trip to the city made by the royal as a 14-year-old schoolboy in June 1935. John Bartholomew revealed the young Prince Philip stayed with his grandparents in Edinburgh and was given his first golf lesson by his aunt in West Linton in Peeblesshire.
Mr Bartholomew, 64, said his father, also John, and the Duke of Edinburgh were at school together and although they were never close they kept in touch over the years.
He said: “Philip already had connections to Moray and came to Gordonstoun School in 1934. My dad joined the school the following year. He had been at Edinburgh Academy first but it didn’t suit him and so he then went to Gordonstoun.
"It wasn’t a big school so he got to know Philip quite well but they were never that close because there was an age difference – Dad was a year younger – so they weren’t in the same class.
"But when Philip and another boy, Matthias Paneth, were sent to Edinburgh for a sports fixture, it was my grandparents who offered to take them in for the weekend.
"He stayed with my grandparents, who at that time lived in George Square, for the weekend of June 14-16 in 1935. My grandad was the mapmaker John Bartholomew and he and my granny would always spend weekends in West Linton. They had a weekend house there which was right beside the golf course.
"While Philip was there, my dad’s older sister, my aunt Ailie Bartholomew, gave him his first golf lesson on the course. I don’t have any further information about that except that that happened.”
A retired mapmaker himself, Mr Bartholomew revealed the young Philip had sent his grandfather a thank you note. Philip wrote: “We thank you for our most enjoyable stay with you. It was very kind of you to put us up for the weekend and we enjoyed the drive into the country immensely. We gave John his stuff as soon as we arrived.”
Mr Bartholomew said: “The fun thing about it was the thank you letter Philip sent to my grandad – when he wrote: ‘I gave John his stuff’, meaning my grandparents had given Philip things, not sure if it was clothes or food, to give to my dad when Philip arrived back at Gordonstoun.
"My grandparents never really went into details about his stay but it was always talked about in the family – the story of when he came – and I have the visitors’ book where there is a photograph of Philip with my granny, Matthias, Aunt Ailie and myunc les Robbie and Peter.” Mr Bartholomew said in later years his father, who passed away in 2008, would gift maps and atlases to Philip, who visited his company a few times, for his world travels.