04/09/2021 15:56
Clarín.com
World
Updated 04/09/2021 3:56 PM
One hours before the death of Prince Philip at 99, the first episode of the documentary "The Queen Unseen" was released where an unpublished video of Queen Isabell II with her husband in the 50s was released.
The broadcast scene, which is the preview of the documentary "The Queen Unseen", represents a few days of rest in 1953, shortly after she was crowned.
The images take on special importance after the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.
In the video, he can be seen playing with an inflatable in a pool while his wife watches him from the edge.
The Duke of Edinburgh falling from the inflatable in the documentary "The Queen Unseen"
The video also sees Felipe throwing the Norries' daughter, Sarah Stephenson, then 10, into the water.
The journey had been exhausting for the young monarch, who had been crowned earlier in the year, and she and Philip were said to have enjoyed the opportunity to have some free time.
The scene was recorded at home in 1953 during Isabel and Felipe's rest days, after a busy schedule that included seven months of touring the Commonwealth.
The relaxed sequence of the royal couple was recorded by Patricia Norrie, who was the wife of then New Zealand Governor General Sir Willoughby Norrie.
According to Stephenson, it was "tremendously exciting" that the members of the monarchy stayed with the Norries.
Although it is only a few seconds long, the video is part of the documentary "The Queen Unseen", which premiered this Thursday in the United Kingdom.
With less than two weeks to go until Isabel celebrates her 95th birthday, the first chapter shows her coronation.
The filmmakers of "The Queen Unseen" sought to show the institutional side as queen, but also the lesser known aspects of the monarch.
How Elizabeth II has been as a wife, mother, housewife, lost in love with animals and, perhaps most strikingly, a person with a great sense of humor.
Young Queen Elizabeth II making a home recording in the 1950s.
A life of almost a century
The Duke of Edinburgh had celebrated 73 years of marriage to Elizabeth, who was almost 95 years old, in November.
In June he would have been 100 years old.
"It is better to disappear than to reach the expiration date," he had said a few years ago with his particular sense of humor.
If his wife, who came to the throne in 1952, broke all longevity records as monarch, Felipe was the consort who held that honor the longest.
It was since 2009, when it surpassed Carlota, the wife of Jorge III.
"It is my rock. It has been my strength and my support
," the queen once said, not inclined to show affection in public.
His life spanned nearly a century of European history.
Born on June 10, 1921 on the Greek island of Corfu as a member of the Greek royal family, he ended up as Britain's longest-serving consort during a turbulent reign in which the millennial monarchy was forced to reinvent itself for the XXI century.
Of German descent, he was the fifth child of Alice of Battenberg and Andrew of Greece.
The family fled months later, when the Hellenic republic was proclaimed and took refuge near Paris.
His father was a regular at the Monte Carlo casinos.
The mother, depressed, entered a convent.
Felipe was 10 years old.
Left in the hands of distant relatives, he attended schools in France, Germany and Great Britain until he ended up in an austere Scottish boarding school.
He then joined the British Royal Navy and actively participated in the fighting during World War II in the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic.
He was a young man of 18 when he met Isabel before the war.
Lilibet, as her mother nicknamed her, was 13 years old and fell in love.
They were married eight years later, on November 20, 1947. Philip, appointed Duke of Edinburgh, had to renounce his previous titles of nobility and his Orthodox religion.
In February 1952, the premature death of his father-in-law, King George VI, marked the end of his career as an officer in the Navy and inaugurated that of prince consort that followed him for the rest of his life.
In 2017, he had retired from public activities.
He was known for his occasionally racist and sexist comments, and for having diligently fulfilled more than 20,000 royal commitments to advance British interests at home and abroad.
He ran hundreds of charities, founded programs that helped British schoolchildren take part in challenging outdoor adventures, and played a leading role in raising his four children, including his eldest son, Prince Charles, heir to the throne.
Tall and stiff, always behind the queen as required by protocol, Felipe assumed his secondary role with better or worse disposition.
It took him years of apprenticeship, he admitted, to find his place in the shadow of Elizabeth II and in the heart of the British, but then he enjoyed a high popularity rating, as did his wife.
Look also
Prince Philip's last wish was known before he died
The day that Felipe de Edimburgo traveled to Argentina: romance with Malena Blaquier or diplomatic efforts?
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