Coronet, pp.513, 25
Though the indefatigable Gyles Brandreth met and interviewed Prince Philip over a 40-year period, His Royal Highness managed to give very little away. ‘He would just look at me balefully and say nothing,’ Brandreth writes. Wondering what Prince Philip’s philosophy of life might be, ‘I didn’t get very far’. When asked about his childhood,‘he brushed away the subject’. Prince Philip’s attitude to parenthood was a flat: ‘We did our best.’ His opinion of the Queen Mother: ‘He would not be drawn.’ His summing up of the consort’s existence: ‘I tried to find useful things to do. I did my best’ e.g. by introducing a footman training programme or building a log cabin at Sandringham.