Prince Andrew has been stripped of his honours and shunned by his family. Only his ex wife stands by his side. Andrew, or as I still choose to call him, Prince Andrew, is a war hero in my book.
The media, the public and seemingly everyone have abandoned this man because he did something that many men have probably been guilty of: he had dubious mates and had a few bedtime romps with young women.
As a woman, I actually defend him. And I believe that he is a target of a political campaign and the bureaucracy have thrown him under the bus.
Yes, his choice of friends was not the best. But what, honestly, has he done other than be a " Randy Andy " and that, which decades ago was seemingly OK is now seeing the media portray him internationally as despised and condemned to infamy as a dirty old man? How things have changed.
When I was a little girl, I had my teddy bear and he was a staunch friend in times of trouble. My childhood chums saw me through many difficulties. So it was with some confusion that I read that Prince Andrew has 72 teddy bears and they are still all meaningful members of his adult life. Some are dressed in sailor suits and that seems rather poignant to me and it got me thinking
Why would the Prince - the Duke of York - have a large collection of teddy bears and have many dressed as sailors? All while he is accused of rather unpleasant crimes associated with a known pedophile?
Hmm
My childhood toys were and are precious to me. My dolly and my teddy bear and, despite now being a grown supposedly mature woman of nearly 70 years, I still love a certain stuffed frog who has been with me for some decades. I love and loved my feline friend who sadly left me a few months ago and I have found myself gravitating back to the comfort of Mr Frog.
We adults sometimes pretend that we are " grown up" We think that we have matured and are now all flash and fancy but we are all still children at heart.
When I learned that Prince Andrew, the man who has been stripped of his military honours, shunned by the press, the public and the kingdom that he calls home, I just had to wonder.
What on earth has made a nation turn against a man who gave so much?
One photo. Which I will not publish here because I am still unsure as to whether or not it is real or a photoshop. No matter- it is an image of an older man with a young woman and neither party looks unhappy.
It simply did not and does not make sense.
OK OK, I am probably going to be howled down here for writing this and it will only be with the passage of time that I will know whether or not I was right.
I have read and re-read a novel by Evelyn Waugh " Brideshead Revisited " which was about a young man named Sebastion who seemed to be trapped in a perpetual desire to keep his childhood alive.
His little Teddy Bear named Aloysius is Sebastion's constant companion. The teddy bear symbolises Sebastian’s youth and his reluctance to grow up. Sebastian is 19 at the time, and although he is too old for childish toys like teddy bears, he is afraid of responsibility and does not want to progress into adulthood. His attachment to the teddy bear thus represents his rejection of adult life and his desire to escape from it.
But back to Prince Andrew.
At 19, he entered Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC), Dartmouth, in 1979 to train as a naval officer, following in his father’s footsteps. Andrew completed the course at BRNC in 1980. He then underwent pilot training in both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters and received his pilot’s wings in 1981. The following year, as a Royal Navy sublieutenant assigned to HMS Invincible, he flew helicopter missions in the Falkland Islands War.
The Falklands War is, in my opinion, one of the most forgotten wars in modern history. It was a war that deserves an article in its own right and one day perhaps we will feature one here.
But I am more concerned about the role of Prince Andrew in this conflict.
At age 22, Andrew was hailed as a hero who saved lives when he and his crew plucked survivors from the icy South Atlantic waters after the sinking of a British warship blowing up and then rescuing some of the crewmen. 'It was something I shall never, ever forget. It was quite horrific.' .
Andrew said he flew three to four hours a day piloting his Royal Navy Sea King helicopter behind the HMS Invincible to serve as a decoy to Exocet missiles -- Argentina's deadliest weapon in the Falklands war.
He said his 'most frightening moment of the war' was seeing 'a 4.5 shell come quite close to us. I saw my ship. Invincible, firing her missiles. Normally I would say it was spectacular, but at the time it was very frightening.'
Andrew's helicopter Squadron 820 rescued 26 shipmates from the Atlantic Conveyor. 'They were suffering from hypothermia,' said Michael Retford, a rescued seaman, referring to sailors in an overcrowded lifeboat.
'I was one of the last to be winched up. When I got inside the helicopter, one of my pals pointed to the co-pilot and said it was Prince Andrew.
'He was very cool, just like the rest of the helicopter crew. He and the rest of the crew did a great job. It would be nice if I could buy them a pint to say thanks one day.'
Like so many men and women who served our nations in the field of war, Andrew was no doubt scarred by his time in such conditions.
He went on to serve 22 years in active service for his nation.
To have a friendship with a man who turned out to be a bastard does not make him a bastard. It just makes him a poor judge of character.
But does that make him unworthy of having his service deleted?
I have to say that this is much like the witch hunt that is going on in Australia at the moment with Ben Roberts Smith.
It is, in my opinion, nothing more than politics. And politics is what drives our world today.
War heroes stripped of their medals to appease the woke mob.
Prince Andrew and Ben Robert Smith have been heroes.
Have our politicians stripped them of their medals and their patriotism for political reasons?
Anyone for a serve of Cardinell Pell?
