14th April 2021
My earliest memories of my Father were of a very young slim blonde man who was very agile and strong and could work all day and still come home and dig our vast garden as he loved growing vegetables. As a young boy to pick those peas fresh from the pod, fresh as the moment when the peas went pop as an old advert used to say. The taste of those fresh peas was divine, in fact you could work your way along the line munching peas popping the pods before Mum shouted hey stop! Mum would cook fresh peas runner beans new potatoes fresh carrots and maybe mashed parsnips with chops – how yummy was that!
Many people said that my Dad as a young man looked like Prince Philip and indeed, he did, they were from that same generation who had been through a calamitous war and although in very differing circumstances, those old pictures of men in uniform marrying their sweethearts is in many an old album. You see we were all in it together. I was born after the war was finished, but my Sisters were on the cusp of rationing and the monochrome look of a country that had fought and won, and yet now had to rebuild our shattered cities and towns. I must say I knew little of any of it as I was born as we were looking ahead to a new world, with a young Queen Elizabeth and her dashing husband. That was all I and my friends at school knew as we stood to sing the National Anthem at school, we were all together. I thought that all Kings and Queens were young and beautiful like our Queen and Prince Philip as they were portrayed on all the stamps and the coins. I was an avid collector of stamps and the Royal Mint issued many new collections, so from King Edward stamps which my dear dad had in a tin for posting letters home to Mum from the war to the little penny Queen Elizabeth stamps and later World Cup Winners, I saved them all avidly getting my stamp hinges and sticking them in! There is a super one of the Silver Wedding Anniversary with the Queen and Prince Philip side faced showing a united couple who faced the world in heading up our Royal Family.
Now that our Prince Philip has died, we are reminded that Prince Philip had a strong Christian faith himself, converting from the Greek Orthodox faith to the Church of England upon marrying Queen Elizabeth 2nd. Prince Philip was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church and brought up in a devoutly religious family. His great- aunt died for her faith, while his mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, became a nun after she was widowed. She created a private chapel for herself in Buckingham Palace which was dismantled following her death in 1969. She can be seen dressed as an Orthodox nun on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in photographs on various public occasions in the 1950’s. Her remains were buried at a Russian Orthodox convent in Jerusalem, as she had wished.
Therefore, for many of us post war children Prince Philip has been like a constant senior member of the family and his passing brings us time to stop remember and reflect.
A Prayer to our unchanging God.
Psalm 102 vs 25-27
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
and they will be discarded.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end
Amen.
Fr. Ron Corne.
Chaplain.