13th February, 2010
The Duke of York keeps flying the flag for British trade
Elizabeth Day, from the Observer, interviews Prince Andrew shortly before his 50th birthday.
Dubbed 'Airmiles Andy' by critics, Prince Andrew says he has never suffered from jet lag or felt fitter as he prepares to look back on half a century of change for the royal family on Friday
At the end of a long, red-carpeted corridor outside the Duke of York's private office in Buckingham Palace there is a large teddy bear propped up on a chair. The bear, surrounded by an array of oil paintings and invaluable antiques, looks incongruous amid such opulence.
It is, perhaps, a fitting symbol for a man who resolutely refuses to feel his age. The duke will celebrate his 50th birthday on Friday but insists that his approaching half-century has not made him feel in the slightest bit older. "I'm feeling fitter now than I have for a long time," he says, bouncing Tiggerishly to shake my hand. "It's no different at all from being 49 and 360 days, or whatever it is."
Apparently the teddy bear is a relic from his wedding to Sarah Ferguson in 1986 – as the couple left for their honeymoon in a horse-drawn carriage they discovered someone had left the bear inside. He thinks it was probably his younger brother, Prince Edward. "It came with us in the carriage and came back with us and has stood there since," Prince Andrew explains, chuckling fondly at the memory like a modern-day Sebastian Flyte. "I've always collected teddy bears, and everywhere I went in the navy I used to buy a little teddy bear, so I've got a teddy bear collection from all over the world of one sort or another."
Life as a 21st-century prince is no doubt a curious thing. During his 50 years, the Duke of York has witnessed a seismic change in how the royal family engages with, and is perceived by, a modern public. He was born in 1960, at a time when the Queen was an aloof and rather distant presence, presiding over a society still largely governed by tradition and social hierarchy. Five years earlier Princess Margaret had been forced to call off her engagement to the divorced Peter Townsend after the Church of England voiced its disapproval at the match.
