Archive for April 10, 2021
Premier League pays tribute
The Premier League is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
As a mark of respect, players will wear black armbands, flags at clubs will fly at half-mast and there will be two minutes of silence before kick-off at all Premier League matches played across the weekend.
West Ham will play Leicester at home on Sunday afternoon.
Prince Philip 1921-2021
The Duke of Edinburgh’s peaceful passing with the Queen by his side at Windsor Castle in the morning of 9 April 2021, just two months before his 100th birthday, “reflects a remarkable life lived in quiet and self-effacing dignity,” as The Telegraph’s Camilla Tominey put it in her article paying tribute to Prince Philip (extracts below). My thoughts and prayers are with the Prince and the Royal family and I will watch the 41-gun salute held from 12 p.m. BST on Saturday.
The Duke of Edinburgh was born on 10 June 1921 in Corfu, as Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark. He married Princess Elizabeth on 20 November 1947 whom he had first met in 1934 and had been corresponding with her all the time during his military service in the Royal Navy in World War II.
Elisabeth became Queen in 1952. When Prince Philip died yesterday, 9 April 2021, at Windsor Castle he was the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch and the longest-lived male member of the British royal family.
Although Buckingham Palace declined to “go into any specifics” about the nature of the Duke’s passing, it is thought the 94-year-old Queen was at her husband’s bedside when the time came late yesterday morning.
Since his retirement from public life in 2017, the Duke had grown used to spending most of his days in blissful solitude at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, whiling away his days reading, writing and painting.
When the onset of Covid-19 required him to relocate to join the Queen at Windsor Castle, an “unexpected bonus” was that they spent more time together in the past 12 months than they have done in years.
Described as “very happy” to have been able to lunch and dine with her husband most days as they both awaited the further lifting of restrictions, the Queen remained in daily contact with the royal doctors monitoring the Duke’s progress. The Duke had been advised to rest after his discharge from the King Edward VII’s hospital on Mar 15, where he was convalescing following a successful procedure for a heart condition at another London hospital, St Bartholomew’s.
According to one well-placed source: “He spent most of the four weeks he was in hospital trying to get home.
“They operated on his heart in a bid to give him a little longer, maybe with the 100th birthday in mind. But he didn’t really care about that. He just wanted to be back in his own bed. There is no way he would have wanted to die in hospital.”
Upon hearing the news of the Duke‘s death, the Prince of Wales drove from Highgrove, his Gloucestershire home, to be with his mother.
At 12.01pm, Windsor Castle issued a 58-word statement confirming: “It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.” Within seconds the statement had made it on to the airwaves and messages popped up on smart phones all over the world.
My thoughts and prayers are with the Prince and the Royal family.
It has not yet been decided when the funeral will take place, but it has already emerged that due to Covid guidelines only 30 mourners will attend the ceremony. The funeral is expected to take place next Saturday at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. There is likely to be a short procession within the castle grounds. Buckingham Palace confirmed last night that the Queen was considering the revised plans, which will be announced in the coming days.
The Duke would have turned 100 in June and the royal household were busy trying to put plans together for a modest celebration to mark his century. However, the Duke desired no such fuss. Having once declared he “couldn’t imagine anything worse” than living to 100, he was described by aides as “a rather reluctant celebrant”.
As such, the man who the Queen famously described as being owed a debt “greater than he would ever claim” may not have wanted Westminster Abbey to go to the trouble of tolling its tenor bell once every 60 seconds, 99 times from 6pm last night or the military’s 41-gun salute that will be held today at royal parks across the country today to mark the Duke’s death.
The government issued guidance that all official flags, including the Union Flag, are to be half-masted on all UK government buildings until the morning following the Funeral.
Any non-official flags currently flying or due to be flown should be taken down and replaced with a Union Flag at half-mast. Half-mast means the flag is flown a third of the way down the flagpole from the top, with at least the height of the flag between the top of the flag and the top of the flagpole.
In his final wishes, the Duke who hated “fuss” and took a no-nonsense approach to life, left strict instructions that he should have a relatively low-key funeral, swapping a formal lying-in-state for commemorations and focusing instead on his military ties and charity patronages. However, Buckingham Palace confirmed yesterday that coronavirus restrictions meant the arrangements had been completely revised and public will be asked to stay away owing to coronavirus restrictions.
The Queen, perhaps as a sign of her growing uncertainty over the Duke’s health, or to help her get through the Harry-Meghan-Crisis, took household staff by surprise in March by acquiring two new puppies – despite previously saying she did not want to take on any more dogs when her most recent pet corgi had died in 2018 and was left with only one dog after having had more than 30 dogs over the years.
The Queen was said to be delighted with the extra company at Windsor Castle, having had only one since the end of last year. The pets brought in a lot of noise and energy into the castle while Philip was in hospital.
Nostalgically naming the dorgi, a cross between a corgi and dachshund, Fergus after her maternal uncle, and the corgi, Muick, after Loch Muick in Royal Deeside, there was a sense that the Queen had decided life was too short as she took on the pets ahead of her 95th birthday on 21 April. Now they will keep her company in the Queen’s new role as a widow.
EXTRA TIME 
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