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Friday 9 August 2013

A Spot of Rain for the Queen

     Using any reasonable search engine, you can turn up any number of colourful photographs and videos of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Nigeria in January and February 1956. However, there is one little vignette which you may not have heard about, which deserves to be rescued from oblivion.
At Lagos, where the royal travellers were welcomed on to African soil, the Oba, the hereditary ruler, had ordered his medicine-man to make powerful ju-ju for a short shower to clear the air and lo, rain fell in the dry season for thirty-five minutes.
Reference: Price Philip, by H.M. Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia, published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1960. (The author was a cousin of Prince Philip.)
Some more of Prince Philip's early life and adventures can be found here.