Prince Philip, a clippership, a lamb pie, and Roman gods at zero Longitude.

I hold utmost respect for His Royal Highness (HRH) Prince Philip and am saddened by his passing just a few hours ago.

Prince Philip was instrumental in saving the world’s two surviving clipper ships ‘City of Adelaide’ (1864; passengers/ migrants/ wool/ copper clipper) and the ‘Cutty Sark’ (1869; tea clipper). HRH was appointed a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum in 1948. The UK’s Maritime Trust was formed in 1969, largely on the initiative of Prince Philip who was its President and Patron at different times.

From 2000 to 2014, I was part of a volunteer team that saved the older of the two clippers, the ‘City of Adelaide’. In order to gain international brand exposure for the ‘City of Adelaide’, and for South Australia, we planned to position the clipper in front of the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich during the transport from Scotland to South Australia - the last ever voyage of a clipper ship.

The Old Royal Naval College lies on the banks of the Thames down the hill from the Royal Observatory at zero degrees Longitude - that is the old Greenwich Mean Time.

In September 2013, through Bill Muirhead, AM, and his staff in the London Office of the Agent General (Matt Johnson, Jason Cameron and Jan Gausden), we invited Prince Philip to the event.

Back in South Australia, we were being supported by His Excellency RADM Kevin Scarce, AC, CSC, Governor of South Australia, and public relations guru Chris Rann.

I researched, designed and scripted the ceremony based on ancient mariner superstitions to avoid bad luck by appeasing the gods of the sea and the winds. These traditions go back thousands of years. The Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans called on their gods to protect ships and those who sailed in them. The Romans sought favour from their god of the seas, Neptune.

The Office of the Agent General forwarded my script to the Palace.

Weeks later, the clipper and I were in Chatham Dockyard; a staging point between Scotland and Greenwich. My phone rang. It was the Palace! Prince Philip had questions about the ceremony and project.

I did not speak directly to HRH but instead via his private secretary. HRH’s questions would be relayed to me and my response relayed back to HRH. This went on back and forth for some time, and over two or three phone-calls that day. HRH’s sincere interest in the clipper shone through. As a through-and-through Naval man, he was analysing the provenance of the ceremony and the project strategies. In particular, HRH was focussed on the preservation versus restoration philosophies for the clipper.

Taking the clipper to the Old Royal Naval College, near the ‘Cutty Sark’, was a huge success. Global media coverage was evaluated by international PR firm Borkowski. By memory, the value of the coverage was $20m-$100m and it reached 200-500 million people around the world.

The day before the Greenwich event, the Australian (Abbott) Government came through with nearly $1million of funds promised by the previous Gillard Government.

After the ceremony, Bill and Matt hosted a celebration in the Queen Mary Undercroft, beneath the Old Royal Naval College Great Hall. The function was resplendent with South Australian produce. Prince Philip clearly enjoyed the relaxed and informal Aussie function, with Coopers beer and Vili’s party pies.

In addition to the phone ‘conversations’, I was able to meet Prince Philip before the ceremony and during the Undercroft celebration when he asked after the type of meat in the scrumptious Vili’s party pies – lamb!

My favourite memory of Prince Philip is from when he was ‘formally’ departing our function with his minders. He slipped back without his minders, returned to the party pies table and, with theatrical flair pretending no-one was noticing, palmed one of the lamb pies as a ‘traveller’ to eat in the Range Rover on the way back to the Palace.

For what it is worth, based on my brief encounter with Prince Philip, HRH was a passionate intellectual with great humour and wit; a ‘lad in Royal clothing’. I suspect his celebrated ‘gaffs’ were little more than misconstrued good humour and likely taken out of context. I have huge respect for Prince Philip. He was delightful.

Vale HRH Prince Philip.

Also, vale Vili Milisits (d 26 March 2021), vale Ron Roberts ('City of Adelaide' Historian and Genealogist; d 5 June 2019) and vale Martyn Heighton (Director of National Historic Ships UK, d 6 November 2016).