There was more good news for him on the vexed question of the baby prince’s name. A few days before Andrew’s birth, a decree was issued by Buckingham Palace declaring that from henceforth the Queen’s children would use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. Under a declaration made in the Privy Council, the name Mountbatten-Windsor applies to male-line descendants of the Queen without royal styles and titles. It was a combination of Philip’s adopted name of Mountbatten and hers of Windsor. So, when Andrew Albert Christian Edward was christened in the Music Room of Buckingham Palace, on 8 April 1960, he became the first royal child to hold the new family name from the moment of his birth. After having complained about the exclusion of his name when Charles and Anne had been born, it was a mark that his own status had been enhanced.

Andrew was also the first recent royal child not to have any official christening photographs. Instead, his father snapped away with his own Hasselblad as the godparents (or sponsors as they are known in royal circles) stood around the silver lily font. The late Duke of Gloucester, Princess Alexandra, Lord Elphinstone, the Earl of Euston and Lady Kennard were the honoured friends and relatives chosen.

Both Prince Philip and the Queen were aware that Charles and Anne had suffered unnecessarily from over-zealous media attention during their formative years and decided to best way of avoiding a repetition of the situation was to keep the baby, who was second in line to the throne, away from public places. Instead of going to the park, his nanny would restrict walks to the gardens of Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, a discreet distance from any public highway. That way the palace could control the amount of coverage the baby received. Like any parents, they were learning from their previous experiences, and trying to ensure they could provide the best environment for their child.

The first photographs to be released of Prince Andrew were those taken by Cecil Beaton, when the baby was already one month old. As always, Beaton’s diaries give a revealing and acerbic account of the event. He thought the Queen’s bright red dress was ‘better than most of hers’, but he ‘felt that the odds were ganging up against me . . . I clicked like mad at anything that seemed even passable. But the weight of the Palace crushed me. The opposition of this hearty naval type must be contended with, and due deference to the Queen. She seemed affable enough but showed no signs of real interest in anything . . . Not one word of conversation – only a little well-bred amusement at the way I gave my instructions in a stream of asides.’ Philip, ‘in that maddening Royal way’, kept on making suggestions, including that Beaton should climb a ladder to take the photos. Eventually, Philip decided to take his own pictures with his own camera.