After a degree at Cambridge, he joined the Colonial Service and spent his career working in Africa.
He was a keen mountaineer and in 1929, along with his university climbing mate Eric Shipton, made the first ascent Nelion, the second summit of Mount Kenya. Then for good measure, they climbed Batian on the other side of this old volcano, which is 100 metres higher at 5200m.
This climbing partnership continued to Everest, when in 1933 they were both on the fourth British expedition to the mountain. Percy climbed to 28,120 feet, just 900 feet below the summit, before turning back. He and Wager carried no oxygen, which cost them the summit that day, and no one climbed above this height until the Swiss in 1952, and Hillary and Tenzing in 1953 – and no one else without oxygen until the Italian Messner in 1978.
On his descent, Gramps picked up an ice axe he had surprisingly spotted on the way up and took it back to England as at that height, it could only have been Mallory or Irvine’s who had disappeared in 1924. He always claimed it could be either mans as his own porter inscribed some marks on it to identify it from all the others, but the establishment named it Irvine’s, preferring to believe Mallory was heroically dead near the summit. He carefully described the slab rocks from where he found the axe and in 1999, an expedition found Mallory’s body on the fall line directly below. Irvine’s body is still being searched for as he carried the camera which may show whether they got to the top or not.
It was likely these tales of heroics in the death zone of Everest and other adventures attracted Philip to Percy when Philip visited Gambia in 1957, where Percy was now the Governor. I still have his Governor Generals hat and sword, and fully prepared and clothed should I ever be asked to be GG of this country.
Philip was a great conservationist later but all during my growing up, we had a dried crocodile head on our back doorstep with “Shot by Prince Philip” on it. One of my sisters has it and it sits in the centre of the dinner table at her parties. Well, it should.
And so, we come to the story.
My grandparents were guests for the night on the Britannia, which was moored up the River Gambia.
I imagine they all had a good party but when it was time to return to shore the next morning, the boats were tied to the riverbank and no staff could be hailed to bring one over for my grandparents to disembark.
Now my grandmother, Mary Moata, or Mo, loved to swim and before anyone noticed, she stripped off down to her bra and knickers, dived off the royal yacht and swam across the crocodile and hippo infested river, grabbed a boat, and rowed back to fetch her husband.
She was a large woman when I remembered her but pictures from that era show she would have had more of a swimmer’s physique and not too hard on the eye of the young duke.
Naturally, Philip was highly amused but not Percy. He was furious that she did this in front of the Prince and husband to the queen.
Within days she found herself on a plane back to England where she was banished for a few months to serve out her punishment for this gross embarrassment to him.
The Africans thought it hilarious.
However, Philip didn’t hold it against Gramps and some years later commissioned him to travel the world and set up the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which he did successfully, including here.
Our three sons along with many thousands of others completed the award, and it was a great experience and fantastic for them.
The awards are an excellent legacy of the late Prince.
