Martin Buckley, Carl Gardner, Margaret Vandecasteele and Pete Bibby on the death of the Duke of Edinburgh and media coverage of it
“Inevitably he will be remembered for the gaffes,” BBC TV told me on Friday. I interviewed the Duke of Edinburgh for the BBC over 20 years ago for a documentary presented by George Monbiot. The duke (whom we were talking to as president of the WWF) was informal and funny, and his intelligence shone through; he had a manifest love of nature and a terrifically detailed grasp of his environmental brief. The gaffes are a tired trope, endlessly headlined by our alternately sycophantic and feral media. Yes, the duke was impatient with the constraints he was permanently under, and yes, he occasional showed archaic attitudes. But at this time, it would be nice to acknowledge his positive qualities.
Martin Buckley
Farringdon, Hampshire
• I and many of your readers, I’m sure, would like to complain about the 13 pages on Prince Philip in Saturday’s Guardian (10 April). I would be interested to know what percentage of your readers read any of it. After all, by Saturday morning we all knew everything we wanted to know about him, and more, due to almost a full day’s blanket coverage on radio and TV. I expected better than a repeat performance across your pages.
Carl Gardner
London
