Parenting is a skill. An art. For which there are no rules. Which is why I was so good at it, I fucking hate rules. (Hence my deep and profound love of all things ‘pandemic’, for which there have been more rules in 13 months than in the previous 472 years combined). And when I say ‘good at parenting’, I suppose it all depends on your standpoint. Like, when does ‘just let them do what they want’ slip over to ‘gross criminal negligence’? When does ‘enough rope to hang themselves’ result in hanging? Is a high-powered drill a suitable toy for an almost-2 year old? He’s only holding that because my gun’s at the workshop and he got bored with the samurai sword. Children need to learn limits, rather than have them arbitrarily imposed by parents, or in fact, even grandparents. Especially grandparents. Joey likes to ‘drive’. So rather than just sit there like a… like a… like a child!, I give him the keys and get him to start the engine first. He’s gotta learn to do things properly. Or he’ll ‘never learn at all!’.

One things for sure. He’ll never know Prince Philip. Who died, tragically, at the age of 99. Shame. He didn’t survive to get a telegram from the Queen. But I’ll miss him terribly. For Joey and Lila he’ll just be yet another ‘dead royal’ who’ll appear in history books along with 42,000 others. For me, his passing (hate that word in that context, but it just seems appropriate at this mournful time) represents the end of… errrr… the end of the Queen’s husband. A straight talker who called a spade a spade. And, unfortunately, also called a Chinaman ‘slant-eyes’, Indians ‘darkies’ and every other ethnic minority some other form of insulting, discriminatory and abusive term. And I really hope, though never heard such a thing, that he had abusive terms for Jews too. Because anything that is a red line in the world of ‘woke’ gets a green light from me.

Philip was born in Greece and in his early adult life, ran the family kebab shop… oh, alright, he was born ‘royal’, just not our ‘royal’. His father was the prince of Greece and Denmark (puzzling but true) and his mother was a Battenberg. She was yellow with pink stripes. Honest to goodness. With a buttercream centre. Royalty meets Bake Off. He joined the navy, married the Queen, who wasn’t the Queen yet, just Liz-babe at that time, and spent the rest of his life walking four paces behind her. He was the first man to win a gold medal Duke of Edinburgh award, so they named him after it.

But he did it with style. And, more amazingly, when you consider the nature of his actual ‘role’, he did it with an individuality and with charm and incredible wit. He could have spent 73 years as a Dennis Thatcher. Mr Background. Seen but never heard. But Philip didn’t. He spoke his mind. Often with disastrous consequences, but heh, he sleeps with the Queen; who’s gonna tell him off?

He was that most unusual thing; an interesting royal. Now that mantle passes to his son, Andrew, who is ‘interesting’ for different reasons. Like, ‘of interest to the police’.

RIP Duke of Edinburgh.

A xxxx