Princess Alice - Prince Philip’s mother

[Funkypolar]

Did anybody watch the documentary on channel 5? What a fascinating (and sad) life. I’ve asked for the biography by Hugo Vickers for Christmas!

No but I loved her episode in The Crown - I wonder how true to the facts it was.

Yeah. I watched another prog about her last year. I had never heard of her prior.

I saw the doc titled "the queens mother in law" was on tv about 5 years ago, I don't know if that's the same one, but I loved it didn't know anything about her before that. She definitely lived a more useful life than the Queen by the sounds of it.

Alice was epic,

the horrors of psychiatric care in the early 1900's. poor soul.

She's a very interesting character. She rescued/hid Jews in WWII and is justly remembered for this.

@CoronaIsWatching

I saw the doc titled "the queens mother in law" was on tv about 5 years ago, I don't know if that's the same one, but I loved it didn't know anything about her before that. She definitely lived a more useful life than the Queen by the sounds of it.

Yes, it's her usefulness that strikes. She seems to have had strong instincts towards charity and worked as a nurse even before she was forced into this kind of work by historical circumstances -- hard not to think that her religious faith and impulse towards a useful, ascetic kind of life not compatible with her royal birth contributed towards her institutionalisation, even if she did also have a legitimate nervous breakdown.

I found this fascinating. Was lovely to see her and prince Philip so close in her last years ( he was brought up by family as a boy while she was away).

I learnt a lot and found it very interesting. I'm not sure it shed any light into her son's character though.

@Funkypolar can you report back what the book is like, please?

She definitely lived a more useful life than the Queen by the sounds of it.

Being Head of State isn't a useful life?

I have watched a few programmes about the royal family on Ch5 recently, and found them really interesting. Is this part of the same series?

I will look for this on catch up.

She lived an extraordinary life.

I think the way it was presented on The Crown was very unfair to Prince Philip. It doesn’t sound like he was as alienated from her in her later years as the episode depicted.

I had to stop watching The Crown.

The book is really good! I’m enjoying it.