A leggy Aladdin stuffed Prince Philip with greater than Christmas spirit
- Future Queen was principal boy for a three-night Windsor Castle run, worth 1s
- She was flushed with pleasure to study that Philip could be within the viewers
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The newest episodes of The Crown present the second 19-year-old Prince Willliam fell in love with Catherine Middleton at St Andrews University.
Unforgettably, she sashayed down the catwalk in an eye-popping at a charity trend present. The wide-eyed prince declared ‘Wow! Kate’s scorching’.
Eighty years in the past this Christmas, by curious coincidence, William’s grandfather, Prince Philip of Greece had an identical ‘kerching’ second.
At a pantomime at Windsor Castle, the 22-year-old was shocked to see Princess Elizabeth, parading throughout the stage – legs on show – in Aladdin.
It was a far cry from their first recorded encounter at Dartmouth Naval College in July 1939 when Philip was a show-off 18-year-old cadet and Elizabeth, 5 years his junior, was very a lot a schoolgirl in her socks, traditional little lady footwear and unflattering beret.
First recorded assembly between Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth, 13, at Dartmouth Royal Naval College, 1939
Princess Elizabeth exhibits a leg throughout the manufacturing of Aladdin in 1943
A signed {photograph} of Princesses Elizabeth, left, and Margaret in 1943
Now she was clearly blossoming into a sexy younger girl with undoubtedly shapely legs besides.
Philip very almost did not see the panto. He’d been confined to mattress with ‘flu at London‘s Claridge’s Hotel however rallied in time to attend the third and remaining evening of the present on 18 December 1943, the place he noticed Elizabeth because the Principal Boy and her 13-year-old sister Margaret as Princess Roxanne.
An ecstatic Elizabeth instructed her governess Marion Crawford: ‘Who do you suppose is coming to see us act, Crawfie? Philip.’
The princess was flushed with pleasure in keeping with Crawfie, who stated: ‘I’ve by no means identified Lilibet extra animated. There was a sparkle about her none of us had ever seen earlier than. Many folks remarked on it.’
Philip sat on the entrance row alongside the King and Queen and his cousin Princess Marina. The King was extra involved than the prince together with his eldest daughter’s costume which he had personally inspected.
‘Lilibet can not probably put on that,’ he complained to Miss C, ‘The tunic is simply too brief.’
But put on it, she did.
From her place within the wings, in the meantime, the governess had the prospect to present Philip the as soon as over.
‘He was significantly modified,’ she famous, ‘It was a grave and charming younger man who sat there with nothing of the moderately bumptious younger boy I had first identified about him.’
The programme for Aladdin, which starred Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret
The Royal Family arrive by boat on the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, 1939. Left to proper: Louis Mountbatten, Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth, King George VI and Princess Elizabeth
Prince Philip of Greece at Gordonstoun in 1939
An enthralling portrait of Princess Elizabeth as Aladdin in 1943
Crawfie will need to have missed the bits when, in keeping with his cousin Alexandra, Queen of Yugoslavia, Philip was ‘almost falling out of his seat with laughter at such corny jokes as…
Widow Twankey: There’s a big copper within the kitchen.
Princess Elizabeth: We’ll quickly eliminate him.
Also within the viewers was the princess’s buddy Alethea Fitzalan Howard, who wrote in her diary: Philip ‘seems so suited to PE and I kept wondering today whether he is her future husband.
‘I think it is the most desirable event that could possibly happen. She would like it and, though he could not be in love with her, I believe he is not averse to the idea.’
There was extra pleasure for the princess because the King and Queen invited Philip to remain for the weekend at Windsor Castle. He was again every week later together with his cousin David Milford-Haven to spend Christmas with the Royal Family.
Queen Alexandra recalled there was a celebration of 9 seated for dinner on Christmas Eve and that ‘Philip entertained the King with a half-comical account of the adventures on HMS Wallace off Sicily when three German plane dive-bombed her.’
Later they turned all of the lights out within the drawing room and instructed ghost tales by the hearth mild. ‘We settled ourselves to be frightened,’ Margaret wrote, ‘and we had been NOT. Most disappointing.’ One would suspect Elizabeth and Philip loved the ghostly blackout greater than the complaining princess did.
Crawfie obtained an excited report from Elizabeth: ‘We had a really homosexual time, with a movie, dinner events and dancing to the gramophone’
The King’ Private Secretary, Tommy Lascelles, famous they ‘frisked and capered away until almost 1am’.
Normally onerous to please Margaret added: ‘went mad and we danced and danced and danced…the perfect evening of all.’
Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret as Aladdin and Princess Roxana at Windsor Castle
Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten in his naval uniform and fiancee Princess Elizabeth on their arrival on the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh in July 1947
Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten exterior Buckingham Palace after asserting their engagement
Princess Elizabeth, the long run Queen Elizabeth II, within the state flats at Buckingham Palace in July 1947as her engagement to Philip is introduced
In a thanks letter to Queen Elizabeth, Philip hoped ‘my behaviour didn’t get out of hand.’
In one other thanks after one other keep a couple of weeks later he mirrored on how a lot he liked ‘the easy enjoyment of household pleasures and amusements,’ and the truth that the King and Queen household gave him ‘the sensation that I’m welcome to share them.’
For the younger man who had not a home he might name dwelling since his mother and father cut up when he was 9, the tightly-knit royal household will need to have appeared as stable because the stones of Windsor Castle itself.
The relaxation, as they are saying, was historical past. From then on Philip and Elizabeth took a a lot higher curiosity in one another’s lives and actions, and as Marion Crawford famous the Christmas of 1943 was a really particular turning level for the younger couple.
- Ian Lloyd is writer of ‘The Duke: 100 Chapters within the Life of Prince Philip (The History Press)
