Once she had ascended the throne, her children’s upbringing, as her own had been, was left in the care of the nursery staff. It was therefore to his nannies that Charles, who soon revealed himself to be a shy and sensitive child, turned for the affection he needed. It was Nanny Lightbody – Charles called her Nana – who got him up in the morning and dressed him, just as Allah had dressed Elizabeth. She also slept in the same room as him and comforted him when he woke during the night.

Much of his early life was lived ‘behind the green baize door . . . Mummy a remote and glamorous figure who came to kiss you goodnight, smelling of lavender and dressed for dinner.’ Prince Charles worshipped his mother, but from afar. The habits the princess had acquired in her own childhood were proving hard to break and, undemonstrative by nature, she always found it difficult to hug or kiss her son, preferring to leave such important tactile displays of emotion to the nannies.

Charles wasn’t an only child for long, however, and by the time he was twenty-one months old, he had a baby sister for company. Princess Anne was born ten minutes before noon on Wednesday 15 August 1950 in her parents’ newly refurbished marital home, Clarence House. Two years earlier, King George VI had decided that any children born to his eldest daughter would be known as ‘Prince’ or ‘Princess’. A special decree published in the London Gazette in November 1948 stated: ‘The children of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh are to enjoy the style and titular dignity of Prince or Princess before their Christian names.’ Had this decree not been issued, the infant would have been known simply as Lady Anne Mountbatten and would not have become a princess until her mother acceded to the throne.

Philip adored his baby daughter. ‘It’s the sweetest girl,’ he told everyone who would listen after her birth. ‘With quite a definite nose for one so young,’ photographer Cecil Beaton added.

Philip’s elder sister Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Langenburg was chosen as a godparent, as was his mother, Princess Andrew of Greece, and Lord Mountbatten; from Princess Elizabeth’s side, her mother and the Rev Andrew Elphinstone were chosen. For the first and last time, Philip’s side outnumbered Elizabeth’s, by three to two, indicating his status as head of the family. The ceremony took place in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace on 21 October 1950 – by coincidence, and appropriately for Philip’s career, it was the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, one of the greatest naval battles in history.