Even now I hope Andrew weathers the storm and finds a safe haven

I ALWAYS liked Prince Andrew. That is not a fashionable view right now, with the Queen’s second son cast into outer darkness with no realistic chance of a future royal role.

- Michael Cole

But memories are short. People forget the Happy Prince, smiling with a red rose clamped between his ample teeth, on the dockside in Portsmouth, just returned from victory in the Falklands War in 1981, his mother there to welcome him.

As a helicopter pilot on HMS Invincible, Andrew flew decoy missions to divert Argentine Exocet missiles from the Task Force. He might easily have come home in a body bag.

The Government had considered selling the aircraft carrier to Australia shortly before the Argentine invasion. I had filmed Andrew bounding down the gangplank at Rosyth, shouting that his ship was “a great ship, a wonderful ship”, one that should not be sold, before racing off to spend a weekend at a Scottish castle.