That summer, the year before Philip left Gordonstoun, he spent the holidays in Venice with cousin Alexandra as the guest of her mother Aspasia, widow of King Alexander of Greece. Aspasia was under strict instructions from Andrea to keep Philip out of trouble. The summer was a continuous round of parties and Philip was showered with invitations. There was no shortage of lovely young things eager for Philip to escort them home at the end of the evening. In the words of Alexandra: ‘Blondes, brunettes and redhead charmers, Philip gallantly and, I think, quite impartially, squired them all.’

It is probable that Philip first fell in love that summer in Venice. The object of his affections was Cobina Wright, a beautiful American debutante, who won the title of Miss Manhattan the following year. For three weeks Philip escorted Cobina around Venice, followed by a week in London dining and dancing. When she returned to New York, Philip vowed to follow her one day to America, but it never happened. In 1973, in a Town and Country magazine interview, Cobina confirmed that she had met Philip in Venice and that she had photographs in her bedroom of the three loves of her life, one of them being Philip. She said they were still good friends and wrote to each other often.

In his final year at school, Philip rose to be head boy or ‘guardian’, he captained the cricket XI and the hockey team and represented Gordonstoun at the Scottish Schools Athletics championship. He wrote to Alexandra about Uncle Dickie having the fastest lift in London and a dining room that could turn into a cinema in his house in Upper Brook Street where Philip sometimes stayed in the holidays. Dickie was already part-way through a hugely successful naval career, and it was on his bidding that Philip took the entry exam to Dartmouth Royal Naval College.

Kurt Hahn’s leaving report for Philip in 1939 was highly complimentary. He wrote: ‘Prince Philip is universally trusted, liked and respected. He has the greatest sense of service of all the boys in the school. He is a born leader, but will need the exacting demands of a great service to do justice to himself. His best is outstanding; his second best is not good enough. He will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a full trial of strength . . . His public spirit is exemplary; his sense of justice never failing; he demonstrated unusual courage and endurance in the face of discomforts and hardships; he had the making of a first-class organiser and was both kind and firm; his physical endurance was quite outstanding.’