Many Happy Returns, HRH Prince Philip!

This photograph was taken last week in honour of the 99th birthday of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. I think you will all agree with us that he looks amazing!

And so does the Queen, for that matter at the age of 94!

They have been together as man and wife for 72 years, having tied the knot in 1947 when Queen Elizabeth II was Princess Elizabeth.

Apparently, theirs was a rather sweet love story. Princess Elizabeth met Philip Mountbatten when she was 8 and he 14. It was at the wedding of Philip’s cousin, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark and Queen Elizabeth II’s uncle, Prince George, Duke of Kent. They met again a couple of years later but sparks did not fly until, in 1939, they met when Prince Philip was at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth.

And fly, they did! Apparently Princess Elizabeth was totally “taken” with Philip and their romance started. They began writing letters to each other and there started a decades-long union.

In one letter Prince Philip sent to the Queen, he apologized for showing up at the Palace unannounced. “Yet however contrite I feel, there is always a small voice that keeps saying ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ – well did I venture and I gained a wonderful time,” he wrote.

The royal couple have been living at the Queen’s favourite home since the start of lockdown. It is their longest uninterrupted stint under one roof since anyone can remember – conceivably the longest since the very early days of their marriage, in 1947, when the Queen told her mother how entirely at ease they felt together on honeymoon at Lord Mountbatten’s Hampshire lodge, Broadlands.

They behaved, she wrote, “as though we had belonged to each other for years”. “Philip is an angel,” she added, “he is so kind and thoughtful, and living with him and having him around all the time is just perfect”.

Once married, Philip took his royal duties very seriously and only retired from official royal duties in 2017, after saying he had “done my bit”. He had at that time completed 22,220 solo engagements since 1952, given 5,496 speeches in his travels to more than 76 countries, authored 14 books, served as patron to 785 organizations and made 637 solo overseas visits, according to Buckingham Palace.

And on top of all that he is the father and grandfather to the future Kings of England.

His sense of humour has always been “sharp” but he also has been known to put “his foot in his mouth” more than once! Quite a character, for sure!

Happy 99th Birthday, dear Prince Philip! We hail you!