ON June 10, the Patron of the Hastings Winkle Club will turn 90 years of age.

No details have yet been released of what they are doing to celebrate his birthday, but his wife has decided to hold an exhibition about his life at her home… Windsor Castle.

Not that he’s taken much interest. Royal sources say the exhibition of personal photographs, paintings and documents of Prince Philip was the Queen’s idea – her husband refused to be involved.

“We tried to persuade him,’ says Theresa-Mary Morton, head of exhibitions at the Royal Collection. “But he was adamant. He simply didn’t want the fuss.”

Avoiding fuss has been a life-long challenge for the mercurial Philip; quite an undertaking when your great-great granny is Queen Victoria and you’re married to the Queen.

But he has managed to carve out a unique place in British society, mainly by refusing to do what’s expected of him ... and by being good at a job for which he had to write his own spec.

Back in 1949, the people of Bournemouth caught an early glimpse of what was to come when Philip pitched up for his first public engagement in the area. The crowd may have expected hand-shaking, a speech, and a Rolls-Royce. Instead the Duke chugged off from Hurn in a “comparatively small and old-fashioned car” which was “jammed in a stream of traffic” and eventually got separated from police protection.

Then he arrived at Dean Park and changed into his cricket whites to captain a Duke’s XI against Hampshire, in a fundraising match for one of his charities.

The Daily Echo’s pictures of the event show exactly why Elizabeth had fallen for him. Tall, blond, good looking, one of the most talented naval officers of his generation, what wasn’t to like? Fifty-five years on and a commemorative photo taken by the Daily Echo at the RNLI headquarters in Poole shows scores of lifeboat personnel staring dutifully ahead ... while Philip and the Queen stare intently into each other’s eyes.

Philip has always been a keen visitor to Dorset and his hosts have learned to expect the unexpected, from the day he went AWOL while visiting Wimborne’s Queen Elizabeth School, poking his head unexpectedly through a classroom window, to his visit to Bovington Tank Museum in 2009, when he “went off in all directions”, examining tanks and firing questions.

This, and all those famous gaffes, have added to the image of a man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

An aspect of his personality is illustrated by one famous story, told by a woman passenger in the car he was driving. She dared to criticise his speed and was told that unless she shut up, she would be put out of the car. The fact that this woman was the Queen, and she did shut up because, as she explained to Philip’s uncle, Louis Mountbatten, “Well, you heard what he said”, shows that while she may wear the crown, it’s him who wears the trousers.

Philip may come across as a peppery old salt with a penchant for political incorrectness, but scroll back to the early years and his life is like something out of an adventure book.

A Greek royal family member, Philip was born in a villa on Corfu and lived there until he was smuggled off the island in an orange box, after a revolutionary court sentenced his father, Prince Andrew, to death.

After schooling in France before stints at Cheam Preparatory School in England, a year at Salem in south Germany aged 12 and then Gordonstoun School in Scotland, he joined the Royal Navy.

A life on the ocean wave suited Philip, who was the Best Cadet at Dartmouth, acknowledged as one of the finest officers of his generation and tipped as a potential First Sea Lord.

He was a war hero too, mentioned in despatches while in charge of a searchlight on HMS Valiant in night action off Cape Matapan in World War Two.

But it is his private interests that paint the bigger picture, literally in some cases because Philip is an accomplished artist and some of his works hang in the Windsor exhibition.

He has an enduring interest in science and technology, as all those workers at Hurn’s Vickers-Armstrong and the military engineering establishment in Christchurch could attest, and of course he remains Captain General of the Royal Marines, who have enjoyed his many trips to their base at Hamworthy.

Husband, father, sportsman, sailor, consort to the nation’s longest-serving monarch; in his 90 years Philip has played many parts and this exhibition celebrates them all.

All, that is, apart from the famous gaffes.

Which is a shame, because who can fail to be amused by someone who, on being asked if he’d like to visit Russia said no, because: “The b****rds murdered half my family!”

And who, upon seeing his wife in her crown at the end of the Coronation, could not help but ask her the question: “Where did you get that hat?”

• Prince Philip: Celebrating 90 Years is at Windsor Castle until January 2012.