The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

6 June 2001 - 80th Birthday Speech by the Duke of Edinburgh - Guildhall London

The Corporation of the City of London 80th birthday lunch for HRH The Duke of Edinburgh - 6 June, 2001

My Lord Mayor, Your Excellencies, My Lords, Aldermen, Sheriffs, ladies and gentlemen.

I am most grateful and deeply touched by your generous hospitality and for proposing a toast to my health in such very kind words. I can only assume that it is largely due to the accumulation of toasts to
my health over the years that I am still enjoying a fairly satisfactory state of health and have reached such an unexpectedly great age.

I would also like to thank you and the Corporation of the City of London for these seven delightful watercolour paintings by the Rev. Keble Martin. They will be a very happy reminder of the phenomenal
success of his book. I am sure it has done much to encourage people to take a closer interest in the survival of the wild flowers of this country.

You may be interested to know the names of some of the flowers illustrated in these plates. They include: Soapwort, Bladder Campion, Spanish Catchfly, Goldilocks, Blue Fleabane, Cudweed, Swine's
Succory, Nipplewort, Common Sow Thistle, Little Kneeling Eyebright and Bastard Toadflax.

I will spare you the Latin names.

Needless to say, I have vivid memories of my first visit to this Hall on the occasion when I was given the Freedom of the City. I hope you will understand when I say that it was quite a daunting occasion for
a relatively junior naval officer, but I still remember it with pleasure. So much has happened since then that it is difficult to appreciate quite what life was like just two years after the end of the war. My generation had barely had time to experience life in peace time before the war broke out. Our formative years were spent in more or less violent conflict, both in this country and in various other parts of the world. I only got back to this country from the far east in January 1946.

I imagine there are a few fortunate souls who have managed to get through life without any anxieties, but my experience is that life has its ups and downs. I just want to assure you that coming to this wonderful Guildhall, or to the Mansion House or to any of the City institutions has always been a pronounced `up' in my life. The City has a well-deserved reputation for its combination of active business initiative with the highest standards of probity. I know that this reputation is jealously guarded by the Corporation and I am sure that it is the reason why the City of London is held in such high regard around the world.

I am also delighted and honoured to be associated with so many City Livery Companies. Their quiet dedication to humanitarian issues is impressive and I have never failed to be encouraged by the sympathetic response to worthy causes with which I have been associated

Thank you again for your hospitality, your very welcome present and for your good wishes for my birthday. I can assure you they are all deeply appreciated.