This may have been an inspired guess or perhaps it was wishful thinking on the part of Princess Nicholas of Greece, with whom Chips had been chatting earlier. Prince Philip’s comment on the diary entry years later was that he must have been on the list of eligible young men, but one only had to say that for someone like Chips Channon to go one step further and say it is already decided. Chips also picked up some gossip about Philip’s parents. He said his mother Alice ‘was eccentric to say the least’, while his father Andrea ‘philanders on the Riviera’.

In March 1941, Prince Philip on board Valiant was caught up in the Battle of Cape Matapan off the south-west coast of the Peloponnesian peninsula, where the Italian navy was intercepted. Philip was in control of the ship’s searchlights. ‘My orders were that if any ship illuminated a target, I was to switch on and illuminate it for the rest of the fleet.’ He caught two Italian cruisers in the beam of his searchlight, allowing the Valiant to sink them both. For his part in the action, Philip was mentioned in the commander of the British Mediterranean fleet Admiral Cunningham’s despatches. Not long after, Philip got some shore leave in Alexandria, where he met up with David Milford Haven and his cousin Alexandra.

‘Philip used to talk at this time of a home of his own, a country house in England,’ she recalled. She found it rather touching that was what he wanted, but she knew with no family fortune coming his way and only his pay in the navy to live off, Philip would need to marry exceptionally well to achieve his dream objective.

By June of 1941, Prince Philip was due to return to England to sit for his sub-lieutenant’s examinations. His ship home sailed via Halifax, Nova Scotia, to pick up some Canadian troops and later, while refuelling in the Caribbean, several of the Chinese stokers jumped ship and disappeared. For the rest of the voyage, Philip and the other midshipmen toiled in the fiery heat of the boiler room shovelling tons of coal into the furnaces. For this he was given a certificate as a qualified boiler trimmer. According to Princess Alexandra, the certificate had a place of honour among his cherished souvenirs, along with the receipted bill for his wife’s bridal bouquet.