Queen Margrethe to her Henri:
´So now we are together at Fredensborg yet again, and this time for a birthday: the birthday of The Prince - your birthday, dear Henri!
A 70th birthday - thát sounds serious, as long it is in the far future; but gradually when one is approaching it, it still only takes a year, and yet another one, and then: a nice opportunity to celebrate the one, who is loved.
70 years is a respectable age, which demands respect. One thinks of white hair and fewer activities; one imagines a kind of sedateness and resignation; it is expected from a 70-years old to sit and to watch life pass, while one is losing oneself in memories and shaking one´s head about what incomprehensible things youth now is thinking up again.
But it isn´t actually like that at all!
Your cellphone is ringing all the time - and sometimes at impossible times; each year you can be found at the steering wheel of your sailing boat, and from the tennis court the ball´s pling and plang against the racket can be heard, accompanied by happy cheering.
All this makes me think of Cahors wine. That wine just becomes better and better. At the beginning the taste is strong, perhaps a little hard; but the colour is deep, and the scent promises an exciting development. Now it´s crucial not to be impatient. As the years pass, the colour, the strength and the aroma will come to unfold themselves fully. Cahors wine is ´long-term keepable´, - so are you, Henri.
All through your life you have known to develop yourself and always to find new fields which have your interest. In your work for the Danish Red Cross, with the World Wildlife Fund and for Europa Nostra you could use your talents which took you to the Danish diplomacy, and you supported Danish industry and export, in such a manner that you create respect and make people pay attention to Denmark and Danish capabilities all around the world.
You are a family man, a loyal friend and a happy giver; but you do not sell out everything of yourself, your innermost kernel you will not unveil; but it´s from here you are getting your strength, and which is the source for your talent to surprise and to make life rich and full of subtleties to those who are closest to you and to the one who shares her life with you.
You are curious of everything, also of what is living in yourself. In spite of the troublesome experiences you had to go through during the recent years it is clear to us who are close to you, that it is at this point that you seriously have found yourself and truly have been able to expand. To all of us you pleased and surprised us with your poetry. It´s here your rich spirit with its deep layers and musicality are unveiled, and here your intellect shows itself in its stringency, its wit and all its finely tuned facets.
More than half of your life you spent as a Dane and in Denmark. You made yourself intensely familiar with the life here in this country. The Danish garden you came to, is not entirely the same as it was 37 years ago. You yourself contributed to develop it and to provide it with new and exciting growth. Yet when this sometimes gets a little bit too net or too narrow for you, you elegantly get over the fence and travel southward to your vineyards at your beloved Caïx. Here you find nourishment and new inspiration, and, enriched, you return home to Denmark. To a busy and working life as The Prince, as father and grandpapa and as my Henri.
All of us gathered around you here and all over Denmark this evening are glad to celebrate your birthday and wish you many good and rich years to come.
I beg all of you to rise and, together with me, propose a toast and a ninefold ´long may he live´.
Long live His Royal Highness The Prince.
n the occasion of His Royal Highness Prince Henrik's 70th birthday
