Prince Philip and me by Roger Francis

PRINCE PHILLIP AND ME

“Good Morning Sir, I am the test pilot”.

These were the first words I uttered to H.R.H. Prince Philip, and unbeknown to me, it was the beginning of a long acquaintance with the Prince. The occasion was a tour of the Walker Wingsail factory when it was based in Hamble, which had been organised for the Prince many months before. The wingsail had been fitted to the “Ashington”, my command in June 1986.

To mark the occasion, Walkers wanted to present a model of the ship fitted with the wingsail, and when they found the professionally built models to be extortionate, they asked me if I could oblige. At the time I had built numerous models, including models of two of the ships I had sailed on. So the model was duly presented to Prince Philip during the visit, and he said that he had been at a meeting of the National Maritime Museum and they were keen to receive it. The presentation was not without its humour, as I described how I had written on the deck of the Mate’s cabin (hidden from view), that my elder daughter Britta spent her first Christmas there at the age of five months. On seeing that I had fitted out the wheelhouse Prince Philip asked me “if there was a model of me in the wheelhouse too!”. As he was leaving, he took me away from the model, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I could read the plaque on the model. When I said I couldn’t, he told me that I should bear in mind doddering old fools like him, needed to be able to read the plaques, and to make them as big as possible!

During my involvement with Prince Philip, I struck up a friendship with his late Private Secretary, Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt-Davis, K.C.V.O., C.B.E. This was through the negotiations to move the model from Buckingham Palace to the Discovery Museum in Newcastle on Tyne. The model had gone from the presentation to the Walker Wingsail factory in Plymouth for twelve years on loan, then when they went into liquidation, it was sent back to me to repair a small bit of damage, before the Palace asked for it back.

I was away piloting on the day that Miles came to collect it and Kathy was feeling ill, so Miles merely came in, picked up the model and beat a hasty retreat.

In 2006, I was elected a Younger Brother of Trinity House, where the Master was H.R.H. Prince Philip, and so I found myself meeting and talking with the Prince on numerous occasions. When not able to update the Prince on the progress of the wingsail, Miles suggested I drop into Buckingham Palace, when I could and have a cup of coffee with him. He could then pass on elements of our conversation to the Prince.

One of the memories which I will cherish is one such visit to Miles at 09.00 hrs one morning. As I was walking along the corridor to his office, which must have been below the Royal Apartments, as I could clearly hear the piper playing the Queen’s breakfast recital.

In 2011 Prince Philip retired as Master of Trinity House, ending the longest service of any Master in its 417 year history, having served for 42 years. Since that time, I remained in contact with Miles, and continued to keep in touch with the Prince through Buckingham Palace, and also when he was

guesting at Trinity House functions, which he often did, accompanying Princess Anne, who became Master in his place.

In February 2013, I was able to write to Buckingham Palace and update the Prince on the progress of the wingsail, and that we were now planning to test the wingsails on the manned model at the Ship Handling Centre bear Romsey in Hampshire.

The Prince’s new Private Secretary wrote back to me to say that H.R.H. would like to know the dates of the trials and sent me his best wishes for this new venture. I wrote back giving the dates we planned to carry out the trials, and almost by return of post, I received a letter from the Prince’s Equerry in Waiting, telling me that the Prince had “placed 10.15 hrs on the 21st of May 2013 in his schedule to view the wingfoil (sic) trials at Timsbury Lake” . He also sent some guidance notes.

Suddenly I found myself arranging a Royal Visit! Naturally I wrote to Miles to say “help”, and Miles gave me sage advice, in that he said the real expert will be the Security Officer, one of H.R.H.’s Personnel Protection Officers (PPO), who will be doing the recces anyway. All it needed was for me to plan what happened!

The visit went off well. The Prince had flown by helicopter to a house nearby, and came over to us by car. He had asked to come on the model with me, but due to a health problem he was unable to. Nevertheless, he spent most of the visit holding a life jacket – just in case. I had invited Miles to the event and when the Prince saw him he said “what the B……...H… are you doing here?” and when Miles said “Roger had invited me”, the Prince said “Oh that’s OK then!”

A month later, I sent a report of the trials to Buckingham Palace and received a warm reply through his Private Secretary.

Following that I had occasional meetings with the Prince, and last year I wrote to the Palace to advise that we were carrying out further trials and once again, inviting him to those. Unusually I did not receive a reply, so I telephoned his Private Secretary at the Palace, and he advised me that the Prince was not well, and at Windsor Castle. The assumption was that, whilst he had read the letter, he would not reply until he could give me a firm answer. Naturally, the reply never came.

I found the Prince highly approachable, and extremely knowledgable with an amazing memory for names. He once asked me whom we had met, when he visited the factory in 1987, and when I looked blank, he said “Oh I remember, it was so and so”.

He once called me a fool, but he was right to do so, as I tried to make a point about the proliferation of wind turbines in the Netherlands, when talking about the UK insisting on hills being best, and he pointed out that the Netherlands were flat. I shall miss him.

Captain Roger Francis