‘I THOUGHT I WOULD TRY A GOOGLY. I LET THE BALL GO… I HAD NO CONTROL OVER THE BLOODY THING OF COURSE, AND IT SAILED WAY UP INTO THE AIR, HE DUCKED, AND IT HIT HIS WICKET!’
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was born on the Greek island of Corfu on 10 June 1921. After leaving Gordonstoun School, where he became Head of the School and Captain of Hockey and Cricket, he joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1939. He gained a series of promotions during and after the Second World War, rising to Commander by the time he left in 1952, on the death of the late King George VI. He is also patron of some 800 organisations and has a keen interest in the natural environment and science and technology.
An introduction to the Duke’s Equerry had left the door ajar for me to present my credentials, a brief outline of the book and a list of questions I would like to ask if given the opportunity. The response to my approach was impressively fast and pleasingly positive, with a firm date and time for my audience with Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace soon confirmed. My chauffeur, Helen, more often seen in her role as my wife, drives us up to the North Gates of the Palace, where I wave to the gawping crowds – as one does. There is a careful check before we move forward, park and enter through the Privy Purse Door. The Duke’s Equerry meets me and takes me up the broad staircase and into the library where, after being introduced, I take my seat on a firm, business-like settee, surrounded by shelves of books towering up to the ceiling.
Once we have checked sound levels on my recorder, I ask the Duke about the cricket that he first played at Cheam School in 1929. ‘I don’t believe I had a great deal of natural ability, although I made the second XI, but then I left a year early, so nothing very special. I then went to school in Germany for a year where we didn’t play cricket at all. So it wasn’t until I went to Gordonstoun that I had the chance to play again. There were only 20 of us in the school when I first joined, so everybody had to play everything all the time. We only had a couple of masters who could play cricket and we didn’t have any playing fields, so we had to go to the public park in Elgin and play there.
‘The one thing you are coached at school is batting, but I really decided that I would also learn to bowl, because at least then I would have something to do when we were in the field. If I could do some bowling I would not have to stand endlessly down at third man. I tried – as everybody does, I think to bowl fast and straight, rigidly, before coming to the conclusion that it was much too energetic. So then I thought I would see if I could bowl off breaks, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t!
‘After I left school I went on playing, but then the war came and I went into the Navy. So there wasn’t very much cricket – we never really stopped anywhere! Once every six months or so we managed to get a game, but it wasn’t very serious. After the war I played a bit at Windsor, where there were two clubs. I played a couple of times. I was also persuaded to play in some charity matches; I think probably the earliest charity cricket matches. I believe the first was against Hampshire at Bournemouth. Then I played at Arundel, Badminton and at Highclere, I think once a year, in these sorts of matches.
‘I remember a cartoonist called Jackie Broome, a retired Royal Navy captain, who signed his cartoons simply with a drawing of a broom. I was playing cricket against him at Windsor and although I usually bowled off breaks, occasionally I could bowl a leg break, and I thought I would try a googly. I found that by doing something like this [he demonstrates the delivery] it did actually still become an off break having come the long way round! Anyway, I let the ball go. I had no control over the bloody thing, of course, and it sailed way up into the air, he ducked, and it hit his wicket! Broome produced a cartoon of this event, which I have hanging in the loo at Sandringham.
‘In what must have been the early 1960s, I was playing in one of these charity matches at Arundel, and I was bowling to Tom Graveney. I don’t know what he did, but I had a fine leg and he was caught there. Sheer fluke, I think. Every time I saw Tom afterwards, he always said, “I’m your rabbit” or something like that. I remember that one, funnily enough, because he kept reminding me of it! And his son’s going round saying it now!
‘When I played, it was mostly with first-class cricketers. One of them was John Reid, who was captain of the New Zealand side. He was quite a small chap, I think, but had forearms the size of my leg. He was colossal and he belted the thing around – scored, I believe, the fastest 50 ever. [According to Ted Dexter, who was Reid’s opposite number in the 1962-63 series, Reid hit the ball as consistently powerfully as anyone he had ever seen. ] So I did see some quite remarkable performances. There is a certain enjoyment in playing these games with professional cricketers. They are brilliant at fixing a game for charity purposes and they really can get the whole thing to finish in the last over. They knew how to bowl to you, let you have 15 or 20 runs, and then it gets serious! I once played in a village cricket match – in fact, it’s the only one I did – and I was given out first ball – lbw. The fielding team were absolutely stunned. Lovely!
‘Of course, the great thing about those matches was that they were played on very good pitches, and that was new to me because, in Scotland, we played on land that had recently been grazed by sheep or something. Most of the games I played in – well, apart from when I was at Cheam, where they had a very good ground – most of the grounds were not brilliant and then suddenly to play on a county ground, which is like a billiard table, was absolutely spectacular. I probably got less turn with my off breaks but on the other hand it was easier to bat, because you had a certain amount of confidence about what was going to happen.’
How strange it must have been for the Duke, given his rather special status in life, to play in these matches. How was he treated in changing rooms – notorious for being places of great joshing, bad language and jockstraps? ‘Oh yes, and that is exactly what they remained. I think, like all these things, if you get involved you become one of the participants. Exceptional circumstances don’t come into it and that applies to all the organisations and sports that I got involved in. I didn’t get special treatment in yachting, or in polo, in carriage driving or anything. In fact, when I was carriage driving, I was also president of the International Federation but I still had to perform in front of the chairman of the Driving Committee, who was a judge on these occasions, just as part of the competition, which was odd sometimes.’
One slightly tongue-in-cheek thought on his active cricketing days: had he ever set up a cricket net here at the Palace and sneaked down the backstairs to practise from time to time? ‘Not here, no! The trouble is, this is the office – people don’t very often play cricket in office hours. So no, it didn’t happen here.’
The Duke was still only in his twenties when he effectively gave up cricket and started to play polo. It’s abundantly clear that he had enjoyed cricket and I wondered whether he had simply been attracted by the idea of playing polo or had made the change for some other reason. ‘In 1949 I went out to the Mediterranean as second in command of a destroyer and my uncle, Lord Mountbatten, was commanding the First Cruiser Squadron. He was a polo fanatic and he literally said, “My boy, you are going to play polo.” He provided some ponies for me and from that start I went on to play polo for 20 years. I suppose I did play some cricket in Malta – I think I might well have done – but Malta wasn’t a great place for cricket really. Even so, if I hadn’t been encouraged into polo, I probably would have gone on with cricket, I suppose. It was great fun, but I found I couldn’t really play both games, so I rather drifted out of cricket.’
Despite this, he became involved with the Lord’s Taverners almost as soon as the charity was founded in 1950. ‘They asked me whether I would be Patron and I told them that I thought it was awfully pompous and silly for an organisation like the Taverners and wouldn’t it be better if I was 12th man. It wasn’t a question of not liking it – it just seemed to me that if it is a sort of boozing cricketers’ thing, then Patron seems rather out of context. I also thought it would get me out of having to play! So I am described as “Patron and 12th man”.
‘When they started, they said they wanted to raise money for cricket and I asked them if they had any idea what that entailed. I explained that they would have to get people to apply for grants, to go through the applications, go and check on what they want and so on. It’s a complicated business, making grants, and I said that until they really got going, why didn’t they give any money they raised, and wanted to go into cricket, to the National Playing Fields Association? I suggested that they tell the NPFA what they wanted done with the money, get them to organise it and if it was to go to cricket, find appropriate people to receive it. “Once you’re big enough and have enough people, you can organise it yourselves,” I said, “but it would be the easiest way to get started.” That’s what they did and they still today make an annual donation to the NPFA, although I don’t know whether they limit it to cricket or not.’
Since those earliest involvements with the charity, have there been other practical ways in which he had tried to help the Taverners – other than simply lending his name, that is? ‘No, I have never got very closely involved. As President of the Royal Yachting Association, I got much more closely involved and when I was President of the International Equestrian Federation, I chaired all their executive meetings, and that was hands on. But with the Taverners, I am perfectly happy to be a figurehead. What tends to happen is that I am a figurehead when the thing is working well and then if it goes wrong, they come along and say, “Can you help?” and then I can try and do something about it. But I don’t want to tell them what to do.
‘But yes, there was one instance when they asked if I would go to a charity ball. I said, “Come off it!” Charity balls! I don’t know if they happen so much now but they did in the 1950s and 1960s, and they were a great way of raising money. However, I asked, “Why don’t you do something original? Have a cricket match in the ballroom.” So they had one ball that had a cricket match, which was quite funny, and they had a rowing match in another, and then I can’t remember whether they played football or something like that. Then I think it became too much trouble to organise, so they dropped it.
‘A classic case, in which I did get seriously involved, was Outward Bound, which had effectively gone bankrupt for various reasons, which I had seen coming. I was chairman of the trustees of the [Duke of Edinburgh’s] Award Scheme and we happened to be quite flush at the time, so I suggested we take it over. We put it under the trustees of the Award Scheme and then built it up, changed its constitution, got some new trustees and hived it off again. So that was quite an interesting exercise. There had been times before when Outward Bound had run out of money, and one of the principal causes when these things happen are personalities. When you get a personality clash, the whole thing falls to bits. Management would be dead easy but for people!’
Turning to MCC, I reminded the Duke that he became president for the first time in 1949, when he was 28. ‘Yes, I suppose I was twenty-something or other, and with all these very distinguished characters in the game, I wasn’t going to tell them how to run cricket. It would have been ridiculous. They were all very enthusiastic cricketers and they couldn’t have been nicer. I have to admit that I did say to them that I would try to do what I could but that it might not be much because, in those days, I was hideously busy doing all sorts of other things. I mean, I was perfectly happy to do things when asked. I attended a couple of AGMs. One of them was quite interesting, because it was when honorary membership of MCC was given to 26 leading English professionals. This was the first recognition of the professional cricketer by the club and, I suppose, the beginning of the eventual “professionalisation” of cricket. I didn’t really know an awful lot about it but it seemed to me that, if they wanted to do it, then that was that. It did occur to me that it was going to change the face of cricket, because the professionals were going to need more cricket to make professional life possible. I did suggest that one way of doing it was to have the County Championship at weekends, over three days, and that the professionals should join together and make up teams, not necessarily county teams, and play mid-week but in a different league. I think the saddest thing about professional cricket is that it has completely cut off the progression from club cricket to county cricket. Amateurs play for their club and that’s it, and the whole of county cricket, and international cricket, is now professional. Which I think is a pity.
‘Later on, I became President of the International Equestrian Federation and it was just at the time when showjumping went professional. Professionals do have their interests and they do have their influence, but they very often look on the sport from their own point of view – for which I don’t blame them at all. It is slightly different if it is your way of earning a living.’
When the Duke returned as MCC President 25 years later in 1974, had his approach to the role been different from his first term? ‘No, no, I don’t think so. It was great fun and I got to know quite a lot of the people. You know what it’s like if you sit around with people who know about cricket discussing the game. There’s much more to talk about in cricket than in practically any other game, because there is this curious combination of individual and team exercise, which is unusual. It is unique.’ I suggest that the game also calls for a mixture of brawn and brains while wrestling, for example, is very much brawn. ‘Yes, I suppose so. But if you’re going to be good at any sport you need a modicum of brain, I think. At least, if you don’t, you very soon see the result!’
I wonder whether, particularly as a schoolboy, he had cricketing heroes or players that might have been role models, just as cricket lovers from other walks of life do. ‘As a boy following cricket, you couldn’t help but notice Hutton, and watching the films of the Ashes series in Australia, and matches like that, seeing the bodyline bowling, being aware of Larwood and Bradman. They were remarkable players, as was Sutcliffe. Compton and Edrich were really outstanding. Compton I got to know quite well, because he took an interest in various things that I was interested in. He was a great chap, I thought – he was so casual.’
Despite his involvement in cricket and many other sporting pastimes, the Duke is not a great spectator or television watcher. ‘This really is so. I go and watch it occasionally, but I would rather be doing something than watching it, frankly. After all, nowadays you are just watching people earning a living! I am not a fanatic. I quite enjoy watching other things too, although as you say I am not a great spectator. I follow the Test matches and very often turn on the sports channel if there is a series going on somewhere, just to see who’s playing, what’s changing, what’s going on. I go to these Taverners’ charity matches we have at Windsor every year and recently somebody came up to me and said, “The President of the Afghanistan Cricket Association is here – can I introduce him?” Of course I agreed, because I was absolutely fascinated. If you remember, in the last World Twenty20 Tournament, there was an Afghanistan team playing. I think they were probably refugees in Pakistan during the Taliban period, who went home again and kept on playing cricket.
‘I’ve made a lot of very good friends and met a lot of very entertaining people in cricket. It is very curious, the cricket community, quite different from any other. I think, on the whole, they have a better sense of humour than most. I think that if you figure the Lord’s Taverners as a sort of archetype, the idea of combining cricket with enjoying yourselves seems to me something that works rather well. I mean, most cricket teams are based on the pub anyway!’
This splendid thought leaves me with just enough time to ask whether he might have learned anything from cricket? ‘Well, I suppose I must have done when I was at school, although I don’t think I have learned much from it since then. I certainly learned from all team games, not just cricket, that they are very much a social classroom. I think they teach people who take part an awful lot. For instance, they teach you respect for the law, because in games you have to abide by the rules. There are an awful lot of people who, when they go out on the town, don’t feel there are any rules. If they have had experience of team games, I think they are more likely to abide by social rules. But I think also the great thing about team games is that you have to sublimate – you may be bloody good but you have to play with 10 other people, and so you have to learn to cooperate. That’s also a very important social lesson, because people have to cooperate in communities. So I think there are various and very valuable experiences for young people to take from the team game.’
I say that we have probably covered the ground and thank the Duke for agreeing to see me. He smiles. ‘Well, you’ve now got to try and write something!’ There is a garden party at the Palace that afternoon, all part of a busy day for someone who celebrated his 89th birthday only a few days before. I remind him that he also has a St James’s Palace dinner tonight for the Lord’s Taverners. He clearly does not find this at all onerous. ‘Oh well, you’ve got to have dinner somewhere!’
When I try to get to my feet, I fail miserably. Parkinson’s has kicked in and I am dangerously close to tipping over the settee. The Duke immediately offers to give me a hand before planting a knee on the seat and a hand on the arm of the settee to steady it, enabling me laboriously to lever myself upright. I am slightly embarrassed by the episode and can only stammer, ‘Thank you very much. I am sorry about that.’ The Duke smiles and says, ‘That’s all right,’ before we shake hands and he leaves the library.
As I emerge into brilliant sunshine to join Helen, the Changing of the Guard is reaching its conclusion only a few yards away. We are then politely requested to delay our departure until Prince Edward has arrived and while we wait in the car, Helen is desperate to know how it all went. ‘I think it was OK, apart from a shaky finish! But my overriding impression? What a thoroughly nice man.’