Captain Ken #38 - Meetings with a Prince

I was very saddened to hear of the death of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, recently, and feel particularly privileged to have met him on several occasions. I was once present at a reception held at the Royal Geographical Club in Kensington following the AGM of the Royal Institute of Navigation of which Prince Philip was President.  As David Barrie, author of the prize winning book Sextant, was being introduced to Prince Philip, the Duke reached across and, to my complete surprise, laid a hand on my shoulder and said “Now here’s a man who knows how to use a sextant”.  He was so acutely observant and had noticed my Honourable Company of Master Mariners’ tie.  He was, in fact, Admiral of the Company himself.  He then asked me where I kept my sextant now and I assured him it was safely tucked away in my loft. 

Prince Philip was keen to encourage navigators to stay familiar with the sextant, despite the advent of GPS on which we are now so dependent.  We had invited the Duke to dinner onboard our headquarters ship Wellington to celebrate his 80th birthday and when our Captain wished him a Happy Birthday, he said “Oh, don't go on about birthdays.  Last week I visited Chelsea Hospital and when talking with a Chelsea Pensioner he told me his young grandson had asked him, ’How old are you, grandpa?’ to which he answered, 'I am 96.'  The grandson said ‘Oh, I don't ever want to live to be 96.'”  When the pensioner related this to Prince Philip, the Duke said, “No. But he will when he's 95.”

Some years ago, we watched Prince Philip drive his horse carriage over Morecambe Bay, which he was finding very difficult due to two helicopters frightening the horses.  When, sometime later in conversation, I mentioned the incident and asked if he remembered, it he said “Those b...dy helicopters. I WON’T FORGET THEM.” 

When an exhibition commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic was held aboard Wellington, herself a former convoy escort ship, Prince Philip officially opened it and to our surprise travelled to the quayside in the back of the Police Range Rover which was supposed to be escorting his official car. “What’s the point of having two?” he said.  The organisers were most impressed that the Duke knew more about the ’hedgehog’ anti-submarine depth charge weapon on display, than they did. 

Prince Philip will be sadly missed not only by the Queen and the Royal family, but by a great many people throughout the world, and you can imagine how pleased Allwyn and I are that Ella, our fifteen year-old granddaughter, has just received her Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Certificate.  When we told our granddaughter that a copy of her certificate would be in Outlook she got very excited and said she couldn’t wait to see it in the magazine.