Prince Philip: Speeches, plaques and gaffes
Wednesday 2 August 2017 21:52, UK
Prince Philip has met Royal Marines who completed a 1,664-mile trek, as he took part in his .
He announced in May he would be stepping back after more than 65 years supporting the Queen and attending events for his own charities and organisations.
Even though he is known for being constantly at his wife's side, the 96-year-old has completed 22,220 solo engagements since 1952 - the year Elizabeth became Queen.
He has also given 5,496 speeches and been patron of 785 organisations, as well as finding time to write 14 books.
The Duke has also made 637 solo overseas visits to 143 countries.
As well as his charity work, including the Duke of Edinburgh award programme, he has attended many ceremonies and unveiled copious amounts of plaques, but he is perhaps best known for his gaffes and quips.
Over the past few months he has been joking about his impending retirement, even telling celebrity cook Prue Leith at a Buckingham Palace event: "I'm discovering what it's like to be on your last legs".
He has been called a "national treasure" by the press for his inability to curb his off-the-cuff remarks, but some of his comments have caused controversy.
Among his most (in)famous are:
:: "If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed" (to British students in China, during the 1986 state visit).
:: "I declare this thing open, whatever it is" (on a visit to Canada in 1969).
:: "It looks like a tart's bedroom" (on seeing plans for the Duke and Duchess of York's house at Sunninghill Park in 1988).
:: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?" (to a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland in 1995).
:: "It looks as if it was put in by an Indian" (pointing at an old-fashioned fusebox in a factory near Edinburgh in 1999).
:: "You are a woman, aren't you?" (In Kenya, in 1984, after accepting a small gift from a local woman).
:: "You managed not to get eaten, then?" (suggesting to a student in 1998 who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea that tribes there were still cannibals).
:: "You're too fat to be an astronaut" (to 13-year-old Andrew Adams who told Prince Philip he wanted to go into space. Salford, 2001).
:: "Do you still throw spears at each other?" (In Australia in 2002 talking to a successful aborigine entrepreneur).
:: "How many people have you knocked over this morning on that thing?" (meeting disabled David Miller who drives a mobility scooter at the Valentine Mansion in Redbridge in March 2012).
:: "I would get arrested if I unzipped that dress" (to 25-year-old council worker Hannah Jackson, who was wearing a dress with a zip running the length of its front, on a Jubilee visit to Bromley, Kent, in May 2012).
:: "Just take the f***ing picture" (losing patience with an RAF photographer at events to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain - July 2015).
