HELLO! magazine 1682

THE QUEEN BREAKS HER SAD NEWS ‘It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh’ After a lifetime of love for and service to the Queen and the nation, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, died peacefully at Windsor Castle last week at the age of 99. Her Majesty’s husband of 73 years and father to the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex was two months away from his 100th birthday on 10 June. In a statement announcing the sad news, Buckingham Palace said: “It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke…

‘Without him, life will be completely different’ The Princess Royal Tributes to the Duke of Edinburgh have poured in from around the world. As flags flew at half-mast over Buckingham Palace and crowds gathered there and at Windsor Castle to pay their respects, many recalled his incomparable service to the nation. As Her Majesty and her family grieved his loss, Prince Philip was remembered by his youngest son the Earl of Wessex and his daughter the Princess Royal, both of whom enjoyed a very close relationship with their father. Prince Edward told ITV: “I’ll remember my father in a number of ways. For what he has done in his public life, for all the organisations he has supported and influenced, and obviously as my father, and husband to my mother, and all the…

With a firm and steady gaze, nine-year-old Prince Philip proudly poses in the uniform of an evzone – a Greek elite soldier – raising his right hand in salute. Despite his tender years, his commanding demeanour and stoic disposition are already clear to see. This strength of character not only helped him endure the many tribulations and tragedies that beset his childhood, but it also enabled him to become a staunch source of support to those he loved in adulthood. Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark’s pedigree was profoundly royal, and yet the way in which he entered the world was rather humble. On 10 June 1921 he was born on a kitchen table in Mon Repos, a villa set among groves of olive and cypress trees on the island of Corfu. Taking…

Winston Churchill described their wedding as “a splash of colour on the hard road we have to travel”. And from that bleak November day in 1947, when bomb-scarred Britain finally had a national event to cheer about, until their final days together, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh remained inseparable. Royal biographers usually trace this epic love story back to the summer of 1939, just weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War, when the royal family visited the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. An outbreak of mumps among the cadets was confirmed just as the VIP party arrived so, to safeguard the health of the 13-year-old heiress presumptive and her younger sister Margaret, the girls were taken to the Commodore’s House. While the King found it difficult to believe his daughter…

The newlyweds’ honeymoon at Broadlands, near the New Forest, and Birkhall, on the Balmoral estate, was a blissful time. “It is so lovely and peaceful,” wrote Princess Elizabeth to her mother. As for her new husband, “Cherish Lilibet?” Philip wrote to the Queen. “I wonder if that word is enough to express what is in me.” For 21-year-old Elizabeth, the future surely looked rosy. Married to the man of her dreams, she looked forward to setting up her marital home. With her father aged 52 and her mother a youthful 47, she must have assumed it would be years before she would accede to the throne. Philip, meanwhile, was eager to resume his naval duties. Although he accepted a desk job at the Admiralty, followed by a staff course at the Royal Naval College…

In the early hours of 6 February 1952, the course of Prince Philip’s life changed forever. Princess Elizabeth’s beloved father, George VI, died in his sleep from a coronary thrombosis – a fatal blood clot to the heart. It was left to the Duke to gently break the news to his wife. At the time of the King’s death, the couple were on safari, staying overnight at Treetops, a game-viewing lodge in Kenya’s Aberdare National Park, on the first leg of their Commonwealth tour. Due to their remote location, the sombre message did not reach the royal party until hours later, by which time they had returned to nearby Sagana, a fishing lodge given to them by the Kenyan people as a wedding present. It was here, beside a trout stream in…