By Martin Brisland.
All our lives are shaped by simple twists of fate. My grandfather worked for White Star Lines and was due to sail on the Titanic in 1912. He was replaced and went on to serve for many years as a boilermaker on her sister ship the Olympic. If my grandfather had been on the Titanic then my father would not have been born, and neither would I.
The course of British history was altered by an incident at Netley around a hundred years ago.
Fishponds was the home of Colonel Richard Crichton. He was friends with Lord Louis Mountabatten who lived at Broadlands, Romsey. The Mountbatten family knew Princess Alice of Battenburg who would visit Fishponds with her young son, Philip born in June 1921. He was messing about in a boat on a lake in the grounds of Fishponds, a large country house behind Netley Abbey. The ponds were originally created to supply fish for the Cistercian monks at Netley Abbey. The abbey was founded in 1239, and monks remained there until the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII in 1536.
Philip fell into the water and his cries for help were heard by Fishponds gardener, and bell ringer at nearby St. Edmunds Church, Joseph Morse who was working nearby. He threw a grappling iron into the water and pulled the boy out.
In 1986 when Malcolm Nethersole was writing a history of St. Edwards Church, Netley he contacted Buckingham Palace about the story. Prince Philip replied that he had “a vague recollection” of falling in the lake when a young boy.
Philip went on to a successful naval career and married the future Queen Elizabeth II in 1947. They had four children, with their firstborn Charles becoming King in 2022. Royal history would have taken a different path had Joseph Morse not been there to rescue the young Philip.
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