STEP FORWARD THE ROMANTIC HERO By Linda Mitchelmore

As the world takes in the news that HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, has died the writer in me can't help thinking that he was a hero none of us could ever have conjoured up. A real life hero in more ways than one. A role reversal of the Cinderella story, if you will. Rags to riches, because as Prince Philip of Greece the poor chap had been shunted from pillar to post, rather uncared for - and possibly unloved - by his parents and his older sisters. And with barely a bean to his name. And then, along comes the very beautiful Princess Elizabeth and we can swap the ball and the glass slipper for Dartmouth Royal Naval College and a game of croquet. And there's something about a man in uniform that's very attractive, very authoritative. And crikey, didn't Prince Philip look good in his! But while it was the right time for them to meet it was also the wrong time - she was too young, he was a serving sailor, the world was at war. Step in a bit of a hurdle to jump over and Princess Elizabeth's mother who had no end of objections to any sort of relationship between her daughter and the handsome sailor. But she didn't account for her daughter's tenacity though ... just like the prince in the Cinderella story who hunted down the owner of the glass slipper Princess Elizabeth was dogged and determined to get her man. Throw in a few glamorous settings and fabulous frocks and the beautiful people and eventually a wedding was announced. Our rather unappreciated sailor hero got hearts racing around the world. Our glamorous couple move to Malta - and doesn't everyone like an exotic setting with sunshine and drinks by the pool, parties and lunches? Then came a sea change. Our heroine got a promotion and our hero 'lost' his job and with it his status. All was not well in paradise for a while. Our hero did what many heroes before him have done (in fiction and in real life) and he reverted to his bachelor days for a while. Think nightclubs and lots of booze and women who were allowed to go to such places when his heroine was not and who, probably, didn't have children in the equation as well. But then our hero rallied. He must have looked at the steak he had at home and then found it easy to disregard the burgers he was getting outside of it - as Paul Newman put it so very well back in the day. He took on new causes - saving pandas and rhinos, and opening up the minds and lives of young people to opportunities they might not otherwise have had. And not least was the fathering of two more children in a rekindling of the royal romance. Our hero aged as we all do, but the twinkle in his eye, the sheer - dare I say - sexiness of him never flagged. He could still show today's sailors a thing or two about how to wear a uniform and carry himself. I was tempted to call Prince Philip a sort of Mills & Boon hero, but he went much deeper than that. There was politics and duty and service and more family dramas from his children and grandchildren than any man should have to cope with, but cope he did. He wasn't perfect, of course, with his gaffes but I think they served to make him more real somehow, less in a royal gilded cage, and many of us loved him for it. Sir, I salute you.