Captain Ken #38 - Meetings with a Prince

Captain Ken Owen had a long career at sea which included sailing as master with Overseas Containers Limited (OCL), P&O Containers and P&O Nedlloyd.   Ken is now retired and in 2020 he started writing a monthly article for publication using the pen name 'Captain Ken' in the Mellor Church Outlook magazine.

A number of articles that Ken has written are about his time at sea and he has very kindly agreed that we can share them here.   This is the 38th article in the Captain Ken series published here on the PONL Heritage website, and it was written shortly after the death of Prince Philip on 9 April 2021.   Ken recalls some occasions time when he met the Prince, then husband of the HRH Queen Elizabeth II.         

(This article was first published in the May 2021 edition of the Mellor Church Outlook Magazine).

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.

The Royal Family pay tribute to Prince Philip

Captain Ken (extreme right) chats to  Prince Philip

On a later occasion on board Wellington at a reception to commemorate the Atlantic Convoys (which were notoriously tough, cold and debilitating), the Clerk to our Livery Company was accompanying Prince Philip who noticed two veterans displaying the recently released Arctic medals.  He asked the two veterans how they had obtained them. They explained that they had served in wartime convoys to Russia.  The Duke said, “Well I know that, but how did the medals get to you?”  They replied, “They simply came in the post.” “That is totally wrong” said the Duke and asked them to give the medals to him and he handed them to the Clerk saying, “There must be a proper presentation”.  “When would you like to arrange that, Sir?” said the Clerk, to which the Duke responded, “How about now?” The Duke then shook hands with both men and pinned the medals on their chests there and then. I was impressed by this story as the Arctic medals had become a bit of an embarrassment to the Ministry of Defence as they were originally earned when Russia was our ally, but by the time for presentation came the Cold war had arrived and Russia was no longer our friend.  Russia embarrassed us further by inviting some veterans to Moscow to present the medals there. I was therefore very pleased and impressed to notice how Prince Philip viewed and handled this situation. 

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.


The Royal carriage crossing on the River Kent side of Morecambe Bay, May 1985

Captain Ken Owen's articles are being published on a regular basis here but if you are interested in reading others that he has written which we haven't yet used then please feel free to go to  https://mellorchurch.org/information/outlook/.

17/09/2024