Royal family ‘lucky’ to have had Prince Philip for nearly a century, says Prince Charles in new tribute

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The royal family were “lucky” to have had the Duke of Edinburgh for nearly 100 years, says Prince Charles in a trailer for a new TV tribute.

Interviews with members of the royal family filmed before and after Prince Philip’s death in April will feature in the tribute, Prince Philip: The Royal Family Remembers, which will air later this month on BBC One.

In the programme, Prince William describes his grandfather as “a huge presence” while Prince Harry says he was “unapologetically him”.

The short trailer shows Charles, William, Harry and the duke’s granddaughter Zara Tindall talking about Philip over a montage of family pictures and video clips.

One video shows Philip and his children riding bicycles as the Queen runs behind them and another shows him drinking from a trophy and laughing.

The trailer begins with William saying: “He’s always been a huge presence behind everything we have done really.”

Harry follows, saying: “What you see is what you got with my grandfather. He was unapologetically him.”

Zara, whose mother is the Princess Royal and Philip’s only daughter, says: “You never really prepare yourself for losing him because he was always there.”

The clip ends with a quote from Philip’s eldest son Charles who says: “We were lucky to have him for nearly a hundred years.”

More than a dozen royals including all of the Queen and Philip’s children – the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex – and their adult grandchildren, the dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, have taken part in the one-hour programme.

The Queen has not been interviewed for the programme but granted special access to her private cine-film collection.

The documentary makers went inside Buckingham Palace to meet the duke’s long-serving staff and to capture his study, private office and library as they were during his seven decades of public service.

The programme, which will air on Wednesday 22 September at 9pm on BBC One, was originally conceived to mark the duke’s 100th birthday in June, but the nation’s longest-serving consort died two months before his centenary.

The BBC described it as “an unrivalled portrait of a man with a unique place in royal history – by those who knew him best”.