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the Parker divorce gave the media pegs on which to hang their rumours. Joan Graham,
London-based ‘Mayfair Set Correspondent’ of the Baltimore Sun, sent a report of
‘whispers’ that ‘the Duke of Edinburgh had more than a passing interest in an unnamed
woman and was meeting her regularly in the apartment of the court photographer’. The
rest of the American press took up the story with ‘REPORT QUEEN, DUKE IN RIFT
OVER PARTY GIRL’. At the time the story created great excitement; Thursday Club
luncheons were represented as orgies and the rumour went round that Mike Parker had
been dropped specifically so that he could no longer lead the Duke astray. Through
gritted teeth Michael Adeane’s office denied that there was any rift between the Queen
and her husband, and Elizabeth let it be known that she planned to fly that week to
Lisbon to join Philip there two days before beginning a joint state visit. No fewer than
150 reporters were jostling each other on the tarmac at the Montijo Military Air Base
near Lisbon when the Queen’s plane arrived; they had worked out exactly how long the
royal couple had spent apart – 124 days and five hours. Philip appeared at ease as he
chatted with royal diplomats waiting to greet the Queen. In anticipation of the meeting
he had shaved off the ginger beard he had grown during a six-week beard-growing
contest on board Britannia; when he boarded the plane, he found the entire party,
including his wife, wearing false ginger whiskers. Elizabeth emerged from the plane
‘with a broad grin’ and, after shaking hands with the assembled dignitaries, the couple
drove off ‘in dignified silence’, according to the reporters, one of whom claimed to have
spotted a ‘tiny smudge of lipstick’ on the ducal cheek – ‘an all’s well signal that spread
to the four corners of the earth’, Timeannounced.
Elizabeth was very much in love with her husband and it showed. Baron himself said
when he first photographed her at the time of her marriage: ‘She was a shy young
woman, most friendly and eager to co-operate, but not always at ease in front of the
camera. The only thing you could be quite certain of was her feelings toward Prince
Philip. She was always so much gayer whenever he was in the room.’ 4 Philip, on the
other hand, was absolutely undemonstrative. Mike Parker, venturing to the edge of
indulgence and friendship, used to plead with him to show Elizabeth a little more
affection in public – ‘put your arm round her or something’ – only to be met with the
fierce stare which Philip meted out to people when he considered they were being
‘bloody fools’.
The Thursday Club provided Philip with the social outlet that he needed, to be able to
enjoy himself with congenial people he could trust. It was all very like the wardroom
atmosphere in the Navy. Eventually he was prevented by media interest from enjoying
even that; from the late 1950s he was no longer to be seen at the Thursday Club
luncheons. Mike Parker had been important to him as a link with a happier period of his
life as a naval officer and then as a companion in his more daring activities – flying and
sailing, which also provided him with an escape from the earth-bound constraints of
royal life. Philip loved sailing as much as Elizabeth disliked it; she never went with him
to Cowes week, the high point of the sailing social calendar. Philip had learned to sail at
Gordonstoun and Dartmouth, but had taken it up for pleasure only since his marriage