Keep your eyes peeled the next time you’re in Greece because you might just have cause to exhort… Cor phew it’s King Charles!
Because the Greek island of Corfu off the coast of Albania is only the new king and his queen consort Camilla’s favourite holiday bolthole.
And seeing that Charles has probably been around the globe more times than we’ve had hot dinners then it’s worth exploring.
And that is exactly what us honeymooners, the lovesick Mrs M and myself, did 28 years ago.
Little knowing its significance in royal circles.
But getting a glimpse of its idiosyncratic British leanings with its cricket pitch in the capital Corfu city.
Phil’s back yard
Royal watchers, of course, know that the Greek island is the home island of Prince Philip.
And that the Duke of Edinburgh had a lifelong love of cricket.
His first born Charles veered more towards polo and skiing and would go off piste on the slopes.
With Verbier in Switzerland a favourite where he spent many of his happiest family times with his sons and Diana.
But it was to Corfu that he took his second wife.
Again those who have been following his life in photographs over these years will recognised his love for Greece.
You dancer
And here Mrs M has a claim to fame as a former Royal Photographer of the Year.
Charles can be seen in kodachrome doing his best Zorba with locals in Crete.
And again that’s obligatory from king to commoner when you holiday on any of the Greek islands.
And yes guilty to that too… I blame the Metaxa brandy.
I dare say that our new King would have handled any water sports rather better than yours truly.
As I ended up swallowing large gulpfuls of the Aegean.
Aberdeen love retreat
Now while the future King and his Queen Consort chose Corfu as their love getaway, it wasn’t where they honeymooned.
That was in Birkhall in Aberdeenshire.
And where did we return to from our honeymoon in Corfu… only Aberdeen where we lived and loved (too much information) for four years.
And where I had studied and started my first scribblings as editor of the student newspaper Gaudie.
Before going on to meet my beloved, a photographer on my first paid-for newspaper in Reading, Berkshire… just down the road from Charles’s childhood home.
I guess we’re due to meet then on holiday where yes, the corny side will get the better of me and I’ll exhort Cor phew, it’s Charles.
