There are many reasons why I am very keen to participate in today’s memorial debate. First, obviously, I want to play my part in celebrating
the life of Prince Philip. On behalf of all residents across the community of Hove and Portslade, I also want to express the deep gratitude for his service and to pass on the very best wishes to Her Majesty the Queen.
Also, I have a personal, family reason why I very much want to be here. For the first time in the five years that I have been a Member of this House, my father called me this weekend and said, “Peter, I expect to see you in the House on Monday speaking.” My dad served in the Royal Navy in the 1960s, in the Fleet Air Arm as a mechanic, and his words mean a great deal, because he respected hugely the figure of Prince Philip. As a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I speak to many senior officers in the Navy and have consistently heard the respect of senior officers. But the reason I wanted to mention my dad is that he served, in his words, several decks down, and his gratitude and respect for Prince Philip was equal to that of any other person who has served in our military.
We have only to look at the core values of the Royal Navy to understand why. Those core values are: commitment, courage, discipline, respect, integrity and loyalty. Prince Philip embodied those values. Whereas all people who serve in the military and our Parliament have deep, enduring respect for the royal family, it is understandable, when we consider the core values of the Royal Navy, why people who serve have a particular connection with Prince Philip.
Prince Philip also served our communities down in Sussex for an extraordinary period of time. He first visited Sussex on an official engagement in 1953, the year of the coronation and almost 20 years before I was born. He had been serving our community down there for almost two decades before I was even born. He visited most recently just five years ago, well into his 90s, when he opened the i360 visitor attraction. On the way in, he spotted a seven-year-old girl and went straight over to speak to her. An hour later, coming out, he went straight over to the same girl, remembered her name and spoke about what he had seen and learnt at the attraction. Back in the 1950s, he visited our community to inspect the sea cadets. His service was long, enduring and very well respected.
I will finish, as so many colleagues have finished, by sharing a personal anecdote, because The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was the only member of the royal family I have ever met and had a conversation with. It was when I was in a previous job, working at ACEVO, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, and had been invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the work of the voluntary sector. As the members of my organisation were there, they should obviously have been front and centre, so I stood by the door at the back and watched as Prince Philip walked around the room. I saw the intensity with which he had conversations and the humour that he often brought to them, because laughter followed him around the room.
Finally, Prince Philip walked up to the group I was in and immediately launched into a conversation of extraordinary detail about the running of charities and their challenges, but about their potential into the future. He was rooted in the future—bearing in mind that that was a decade ago, when he was well into his 80s. It was
very obvious that he spoke with experience of setting up and running charities, which is why he understood, in such detail, the potential of the voluntary sector.
At the end of the conversation, without taking a breath, he pointed to me and asked, “That thing on your chin—is it coming or going?” At the time, I was making a rather pathetic attempt at growing a beard. Everyone in the group starting laughing, none more so than the Duke himself—he actually brought tears to his own eyes. It was genuinely a great moment, because he ended the conversation on a note of humour. He then bid us farewell and walked out the door. I could not help looking over a moment later, to see him walking down a very long corridor on his own, his shoulders still shaking with laughter at the joke he had told. That memory has lasted more than a decade, and I think it sums up the character with which he served our country.
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