Wise Words From Prince Philip - Part 3
On a visit to open the headquarters of GB Airways at Gatwick Airport in 2000, Philip chatted to pilots and cabin crew and told them: ‘When you think of all the publicity about planes being dangerous to fly in, I wonder, why aren’t all of you dead?’
In 2009, a young man told him he’d worked with the Samaritans. He replied: ‘You didn’t try to commit suicide did you?’
As he sat with the Queen at the Royal Variety Show in 2014, watching a male stripper scene from The Full Monty, Philip told their biographer Gyles Brandreth: ‘Don’t worry, she’s been to Papua New Guinea and seen it all before!’
On a visit to the GCHQ building in Cheltenham in 2004, Labour MP Chris Mullin asked Philip about the modern design, saying: ‘Would Charles approve?’ ‘Charles who?’ replied the Duke.
In 2005, a female reporter asked him: ‘I wondered if you might like to talk to me?’ He replied: ‘You can carry on wondering.’
After meeting Gogglebox regulars Sandra Martin and Sandy Channer in 2016: ‘Well, I won’t be watching you, that’s for sure!’
In 2006, to comedian David Walliams after he swam the English Channel for Sport Relief: ‘Is this the nut who swam the channel?’ Turning to Walliams’s mother, he added: ‘Any more nuts in your family?’
As the Queen opened a dental hospital in 2015 in Birmingham, Philip asked the crowd: ‘Are you all here to get your teeth done? We don’t want to jump the queue.’
At a 2014 reception for a disability charity, Philip saw ex-rugby player Alastair Hignell in a high-tech wheelchair that could be raised or lowered as required. He said: ‘That must be good for cocktail parties.’
He then told BBC disability correspondent Nikki Fox — who was in a normal mobility scooter: ‘You should get yourself one!’