His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con) [V]]

Of all the rich aspects of the life of His Royal Highness about which we have heard from hon. Members this afternoon, perhaps I can focus on two that have not been mentioned.

First, for 42 years, the Duke was Master of Henry VIII’s great foundation Trinity House, the true home of seafarers and shipping, lighthouses and pilotage, of which I am honoured to be a Younger Brother. The Duke was always a seafarer at heart. He understood the sea, and his commitment to all things maritime is absolutely legendary. He even helped to design the royal yacht Britannia, so a fitting legacy might be a new multi-purpose royal yacht, perhaps named “Philip, Duke of Edinburgh”. How fitting that would be! The deputy master of Trinity House, Captain Ian McNaught, quoted Tennyson in his homage:

“For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.”

That great pilot the Duke of Edinburgh has now crossed the bar.

Secondly, I well remember attending a Buckingham Palace reception for MPs shortly after coming back from a long expedition to South Georgia and Antarctica. When I was presented to the Duke, he leaned over and said, “That’s a bloody awful beard you’ve got there”—he obviously had a thing about beards. But when I told him I had grown it in South Georgia, his face lit up. He reminisced about his trip there in 1957 and how much he loved the rugged landscape, the wildlife, Shackleton’s grave and the rest of South Georgia. The Duke was fascinated by Antarctica and took great pleasure in showing guests at Windsor castle the flag that had gone south with Scott and the flag that went with Shackleton, both of which were eventually returned to King George V. South Georgia and Antarctica have a great deal to thank His Royal Highness for.

Perhaps his most enduring legacy, which so many hon. Members have already mentioned, must be the 6.7 million youngsters from 130 countries across the world who have so greatly benefited from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. My friend Sir David Hempleman-Adams is one of the greatest explorers and climbers in Britain today, and he owes that to his boyhood experience in the scheme. He rose up through the scheme and eventually became a trustee. When he was invited to Windsor castle, he told the Duke that it was an honour and a privilege—and the Duke turned to him and said, “No, David, it’s a duty. You must know the difference.” That moment typifies what the Duke thought about the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme: it is about duty, not honours and privileges.

Many other hon. Members wish to speak, so I will finish by reminiscing about a brief visit from the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to North Wiltshire in 2001. We had lunch in Malmesbury town hall; Malmesbury is, of course, the oldest town in Britain—in the world, I suspect. After lunch, the Duke leaned over to me and said, “We’d better get going; otherwise the Queen’ll stay here all afternoon gassing.” I had better take the Duke of Edinburgh’s advice and stop gassing, but I know that I represent the people of North Wiltshire, and indeed the whole county of Wiltshire, in paying tribute to a great life well lived, a great servant of the nation and a lifelong mainstay of Her Majesty the Queen.