The ceremony and celebrations lifted a nation mired in austerity. Norman Hartnell, designer of the wedding dress , modelled the 13ft train on Botticelli’s painting Primavera to symbolise Britain’s rebirth after the war. Sixty-four years later, at their grandson’s wedding, you had to pinch yourself to realise that this still handsome, ramrod figure with a twinkle in his eye was close to 90. He celebrates that birthday on 10 June. 

If William and Kate symbolise youth and love, then Prince Philip is an advertisement for growing old gracefully. Women have always been drawn to him, as the Queen was, and not just for his flirtatious nature but also for his wit, intelligence and alpha-male attitude to life.

He threw himself into dangerous sports such as polo, and when, aged 50, his creaky joints made that essentially young man’s pursuit difficult for him, he switched to the equally risky competitive carriage driving. Only last year he was nursing an ankle injury after the ponies bolted and his carriage hit a hidden tree stump. But the Duke has had a lifetime of bashing into obstacles full-on. 

His penchant for quips that cause others annoyance and even offence is legendary. So is his irascibility, purple bridesmaids dresses as BBC presenter Fiona Bruce found out when she interviewed him for a new BBC documentary, The Duke At 90. It is a fascinating encounter between a seasoned broadcaster used to delving into hearts and minds and an enigmatic old pro who, for years, has been batting off attempts to define him and get inside his head.

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Enigmatic: People have always been drawn to Prince Philip for his wit, intelligence and alpha-male attitude to life

Despite her best efforts, from the outset he would not be drawn. ‘I didn’t want to do this interview,’ he tells Bruce bluntly. It isn’t hard to visualise how he must have cringed at those intimate and embarrassing outpourings from members of his family in the past. It simply isn’t the way he conducts himself, and never has been. ‘I don’t try to psychoanalyse myself,’ he protests in answer to probings about the difficulties of his childhood, when his family escaped from Greece in 1922 (narrowly avoiding an Ottoman firing squad in the Greco-Turkish War), his exiled royal parents separated and, aged ten, he was abandoned to relatives in various parts of Europe.

Where was home? ‘Wherever I happened to be,’ he says, ‘It was no great deal. I just lived my life.’ ‘But some people might…’ says Bruce, trying to get him to reveal the effect such traumas might have had on him. ‘Well, some people might,’ he interjects, tersely. ‘I’m telling you what I felt.’ The Duke’s biographer, Gyles Brandreth, however, is convinced he’s covering up. ‘As a boy,’ he tells Bruce, ‘Prince Philip lost everybody, and he became very self-reliant. But he won’t talk about it and has spent a lifetime blocking it out. He simply says, “What’s there to complain about? These things happen.”’

Among other ‘things’ that happened to him was serving as a young Royal Navy midshipman on the battleship HMS Valiant in World War II and performing heroically in a running battle with enemy cruisers in 1941. He typically underplays the incident and his part in it, just as, later, he skates over his role in the hugely influential Duke of Edinburgh’ formal evening dress ;s Award Scheme which, since 1956, has encouraged a spirit of adventure and service in millions of young people.

He demurs when asked if he is ‘proud’ of it, shrugging off such an egocentric word. ‘I’ve no reason to be proud. It’s satisfying that we’ve set up a formula that works but I don’t run it. It’s all fairly second-hand.’ He didn’t even want his name to be attached to it. ‘That was against my better judgement. I tried to avoid it but I was overridden.’ His youngest son Edward, the Earl of Wessex, thinks this is typical of the man. ‘He is very modest about himself.’ But the scheme has proved to be a beacon and a benchmark for young people for more than half a century.

To actress Joanna Lumley, evening formal dresses evening formal dresses a friend of the Duke, it is nothing less than his ‘gift to the nation’. Others may feel an even greater gift he made was sacrificing his promising naval career and control of his own life to be the loyal consort of his wife when she came to the throne on the sudden death of her father, George VI. 

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Royal family: Queen Elizabeth with her husband Prince Philip and their children Prince Charles and Princess Anne in 1951

The Duke’s cousin, Lady Mountbatten, remembers the ‘appalling shock’ felt by the young couple with two small children as their lives changed overnight. ‘It must have been very difficult for both of them,’ she tells Bruce. The Duke was the first of the new queen’s subjects to kneel before her at her coronation in 1953 and pledge himself her ‘liege man of life and limb’ who would ‘live and die for her against all manner of folks’.

For the six decades since he has been her most ardent protector and supporter, keeping that quaintly worded promise to the letter. She, in turn, awarded him ‘place, pre-eminence and precedence’ next to her. But his life was inevitably curtailed as he gave up the job he adored to be a full-time prince. He won’t say how much that hurt at the time and perhaps still does. He bats away the questions, hinting only that it might have been of great value to the Queen to have had somebody by her side who was ‘professionally qualified in something and not just traipsing around’.

Traipsing, though, was what he had to settle for. His wife had duties to perform, but there is no specified role in our constitution for a consort, so he had none. ‘It’s all been trial and error,’ he says. Moreover, fearing a reprise of the last consort, Prince Albert, who had wielded considerable and possibly undue influence over Queen Victoria, politicians insisted that Philip should be kept out of the loop when it came to matters of government.

I am nothing but a bloody amoeba, the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children

He was denied access to the red boxes of state papers that the Queen deals with every day. He was, though, master in his own household, the head of the family. And a very good father too, according to Lady Mountbatten, an ‘instinctive’ one who loved playing with his children. But there was a cloud over that role too when the government decided, with the Queen’s consent, that their children were not to take his family name of Mountbatten but to be designated Windsors.

The Duke is said to have been incandescent with rage, famously fulminating that ‘I am nothing but a bloody amoeba, the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.’ But he devoted himself to good works, presiding over a charity to promote and protect playing fields for sport and recreation. Requests for his support rolled in. Over time there would be 800 organisations he was attached to, most notably the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

He was rarely content to be a figurehead, and woe betide anyone he worked with who hadn’t done their homework. ‘He’s formidable and daunting, partly because of his position but also because he is a very considerable intellect,’ says broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. ‘ wedding dress for a beach wedding wedding dress for a beach wedding;If you turned up and you hadn’t mastered the papers, he would detect it very quickly and you would be in trouble.’

That razor-sharp edge had Joanna Lumley on her toes too. ‘It’s rather like meeting a hawk or an eagle. There’s something absolutely penetrating about the eyes. You feel you’re being scanned. You raise your game. You hope he’ll like you.’ dresses for flower girls dresses for flower girls; That same look can kill, too, as the media often discover to their cost. 

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Loyal: Prince Philip has been the master of his own household, the head of the family and a very good father, according to his cousin

He’s notoriously tetchy with reporters while also, conversely, acknowledging that communication with the people is an essential part of a modern monarchy. ‘We’re not a secret society,’ he insists in justification of his initiative in 1969 to let the cameras in for the famous and controversial BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary, Royal Family. ‘I don’t see why people shouldn’t know what’s going on. Much better that they should know than speculate,’ he says pointedly. When Bruce asks if the media has become too intrusive, he says, ‘The media is a professional intruder. You can’t complain about it.’

Explaining why he agreed to the interview, despite his reluctance, he says simply, ‘It’s part of the business.’ Does he think the press had been unfair to him? bridal cocktail dress long evening dress ‘Yes, occasionally. But they have their own agenda and you just have to live with that.’ He does, however, rise to the bait when it comes to the question of his infamous un-PC gaffes, such as asking Aborigines in Australia if they still throw spears at each other or warning British students in China that ‘if you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed’. Of the latter incident in 1986, he says, ‘I’d forgotten about it. But for one particular reporter who overheard it, it wouldn’t have come out. What’s more, the Chinese weren’t worried about it, so why should anyone else be?’

But you can see how things like this happen. In the documentary, he is filmed moving down a long receiving line for what must be the umpteenth time in his life and meeting a lad who had done voluntary work with the Samaritans. ‘You didn’t try to commit suicide, did you?’ the Duke jokes, and everyone laughs. Insensitive? Some might think so. In reality, he is just trying to put the youngster at ease with a quip. Yet, for all that he has learned from experience to be guarded, he will always stand up for what he believes.

I don’t see why people shouldn’t know what’s going on. Much better that they should know than speculate

The interview moves to the issue that has dominated his life more than any other – bridal cocktail dress ; the conservation of the environment. He is passionate now. ‘We’ve got extraordinary diversity on this globe and it seems awfully silly for us to destroy it.’ So, says Bruce, would you describe yourself as a green? He looks askance. ‘No.’ Why not? ‘Because,’ says the Duke, ‘there’s a difference between being concerned for the conservation of nature and being a bunny hugger.’

‘Bunny huggers’, he explains, are people who love animals but miss the point about endangered species. ‘ orange bridesmaid dresses ;They’re more concerned about how you treat a donkey in Sicily.’ While he was president of the WWF, he says he got more letters complaining about the treatment of animals in zoos than expressing concern for the survival of a species. And what, he is asked, is the biggest challenge in conservation? ‘The growing human population,’ he replies. And does he have views about what should be done about that? He chooses his words carefully before saying, ‘Voluntary family limitation’ and leaving it at that.

Will someone take exception to that cocktail dress cocktail dress? Perhaps. You can be sure, though, that he won’t care. ‘He always speaks his mind,’ says Lady Mountbatten, ‘but people enjoy it. They think how nice it is to hear somebody actually say what they think instead of saying what they think they should say.’ Which is true, up to a point. Because it is clear from this interview there’s much more he doesn’t say.

Occasionally he puts his foot in his mouth. More often, you suspect, he bites his lip because sounding off may get him into trouble. Perhaps he is secretly writing it all down and, one day, The Diary Of An Amoeba will shock and delight us all. In the meantime, happy 90th birthday, sir.

The Duke At 90, BBC1, 9pm, Thursday 9 June.