The Duke Insists Life Is Not All Palace And Protocol

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31119, 23 July 1966, Page 5

The Duke Insists Life Is Not All Palace And Protocol

(By

JEAN HIND)

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH once said of children: “I do not think you can build character. That smacks of brain-washing. But what you can do is to let the good parts of character develop more readily than the bad.”

And it is upon this belief that the Duke and Queen Elizabeth II have based the upbringing of their four children. Instead of imposing a rigid regime of training of the type which quenched the childhood of some earlier Royal generations, the Duke of Edinburgh insists on a basic sense of responsibility being developed in the children, while, at the same time, their natural interests and characteristics are encouraged.

The Duke himself was born so much the youngest of his family as to be virtually “an only child”. Political upheavals enforced a life of wandering on his parents, Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece. As he once said of himself: “I spent 15 years as a refugee.”

Small wonder, then, that a close-knit, secure family life now means a great deal to him.

On the other hand, his own uncertain family fortunes meant that he grew up convinced he would have to make his own way in the world.

When he joined the Royal Navy, he was in no way silver-spoon fed; when he was given command of the frigate Magpie, it had nothing to do with the fact that he was married to the then heir to the throne, Princess Elizabeth, but everything to do with the fact that he was a brisk, exacting and thoroughly efficient naval officer. Now that he has four children of his own—the youngest, Prince Edward, was born in March, 1964—he delights in their company,

but also insists that they should realise life is not all palace and protocol.

The clearest demonstration of this is the fact that the eldest of the family, the Prince of Wales, aged 17, was sent to school at Gordonstoun, in Scotland. Since this was the Duke of Edinburgh’s old school, his influence here is obvious. Not only is Gordonstoun, with its emphasis on selfdiscipline and service, different in its atmosphere and curriculum from the great traditional English public schools, but also its pupils show a remarkably wide cross-section of society and income groups. At present the Prince of Wales is in Australia, having travelled there in January this year to spend some time at Geelong Grammar School. ‘True Democrats’ The second child of the family, Princess Anne, who will be 16 in August, is also at boarding school—a revolu-

tionary step in Britain for a sovereign’s daughter. Once again, the school selected, at Benenden, in the south of England, was not one of those few traditionally chosen for their daughters by families of the highest rank. The Queen herself, educated at home by governesses and growing up in wartime, never had a chance to learn from the experience of going to school with other children how other families live. But the Duke of Edinburgh knows that children are the only true democrats, and without doubt one very important reason for sending his two eldest away to school was to enable them to move freely and grow up with other children, out of the limelight of publicity. His influence is also strongly felt in his children’s vigorous outdoor life. Spectator sports have never held much charm for him, and when his children get interested in a sport, his encouragement leads them towards

active participation rather than side-line enthusiasm. He has insisted that if they take up a thing, they must do it properly. All Equipped The Duke gave the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne their first swimming lessons, in the Buckingham Palace indoor pool; already Prince Andrew, who was six last February, is splashing around in the shallow end with his father. This is particularly important to the Duke, for he always hoped the children would share his passion for sailing, and now that they do, it does not matter if they fall overboard in a squall. They are equipped to take care of themselves. He taught them to row on the lake in Buckingham Palace gardens, and when he first took the two eldest sailing, off the west coast of Scotland, they had to learn all the fetching and carrying, the rope-handling and swiftmoving action which go to make up basic seamanship. And being taught by your father is very different from being coached by a deferential tutor. In the past, few Royal fathers have themselves learned the hard way. When

the Prince of Wales took up shooting, he soon learned that in this sport you do not retire when the weather turns nasty—you stay out through a storm. Just as you carry on playing polo—which he started to learn with his father’s help—in the rain. Few Photographs Since the Duke of Edinburgh is now considered one of Britain’s ten finest poloplayers, it gives him great pleasure that his first-born is, at a young age, already an enthusiast of the game. All Royal children learn to ride as they learn to walk. But the Duke has seen to it that his family know that horses do not miraculously appear already groomed and saddled. Both the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne have been seen helping to groom their father’s polo ponies, even polishing equipment. Since he had a publicity-

ifree childhood himself, the Duke tries to protect his children from publicity as much as possible. Official photographs are few and far between; official engagements so far are none, in spite of incessant requests. “They will get plenty of that kind of thing later on; it begins only too soon anyway,” he remarked. But he does not make the mistake of confining them to the schoolroom; children grow up much quicker these days, and Royal children are no exception. So the Prince of Wales has been freely allowed to drive . his father’s car on the private roads of the Windsor estate—though never, of course, on the public roads. At the respective ages of 13 and 15, Princess Anrj and the Prince of Wales went to a “beat” dance along with 100 other teen-agers, at the home of Major and Mrs John Bagge, neighbours near the Royal home at Sandringham, Norfolk. Tasks Ahead “I think Beatlemania is entirely helpful,” said the Duke firmly in public, “I really could not care less how much noise people make singing and dancing. What I object to is people fighting and stealing.” This Royal father believes in young people enjoying life and being carefree while they can. But he also believes that training them for the tasks which lie ahead is the most exacting and most worth-while task that can fall upon any man. For when he was asked, at a ceremony at the University of Oxford, in May, 1964, what he would have done had he possessed the autocratic powers of the princes of old, he replied: “I would have liked to see a far more comprehensive attack on the problem of preparing each generation for the responsibilities and challenges which will face them when they succeed to the control of our environment.”