His German family wanted him brought up in Germany, and sent him to the school they had founded at Schloss Salem in Baden-Wurttemberg.But Hitler’s rise to power put paid to that.Philip followed the Jewish headmaster, Kurt Hahn, to Scotland, where he founded a new school, Gordonstoun,with a forthright philosophy and the motto, “More is in you (than you think)”.As a schoolboy Philip was often naughty, though never nasty.He developed a strong sense of public duty and a taste for speed;he excelled at sports and learned to sail, often being given the job of galley cook as he seemed immune to seasickness.At 18 he went on to Dartmouth Naval College in the south of England, where he was named best cadet.When the second world war broke out that same year, he sailed to Colombo and joined a lumbering battleship escorting convoys of Australian troopships bound for Egypt.On board Philip passed some of his time filling out Admiralty Form S519, “Journal for Use of Junior Officers”, a ruggedly bound volume with marbled endpapers.The entries reveal a passion for technicalities and a waywardness with spelling.Hitler’s Axis allies are consistently “Italiens”; buoys pop up as “bouys”; he writes “misstakes”, and “exept”.
