PRINCE OF PARADOX
A new book has portrayed him as a spoilt royal but surely Charles’s work ethic, devotion to duty and championing of worthwhile causes should be the focus rather than his pampered lifestyle?
ANEW unauthorised biography of Prince Charles is always going to add to the gaiety of nations. He’s never heard of cling film! He sometimes changes clothes five times a day! He employs retired Indian servicemen to prowl through his gardens at night, using torches to “pick slugs from the leaves”!
There are more serious allegations too, including one that accuses him of participating in a conspiracy to halt the trial of Princess Diana’s butler Paul Burrell in order to prevent explosive details of life behind palace gates entering the public domain. But all this talk of a “pampered prince” in the book by the journalist and author Tom Bower obscures a work ethic and commitment to public service that makes him something of a national treasure.
Take his performance last year: according to the Court Circular, the official record of royal duties, the Prince clocked up 374 UK engagements and 172 abroad, making a grand total of 546 – more than any other royal.
Given that he’s now 69 years old, who can begrudge him the luxury of travelling with an orthopaedic cushion that helps stop his spine from locking up?
Meanwhile, he is patron or president of more than 400 organisations, including the Prince’s Trust, which he founded more than 40 years ago with his Navy severance pay of £7,400 – about £75,000 in today’s money. One of its early grants went to a 19-year-old woman to run a social centre for the Haggerston Housing Estate in east London, while another went to two exoffenders to run a fishing club.
Since then the Trust has grown to become a vital national resource which has returned £1.4billion in value to society in the past decade and last year alone helped 57,000 young people get into jobs, education and training. Given this contribution, perhaps we should forgive him for insisting on travelling with his own loo seat and “premium comfort” toilet paper.
Then there’s his interest in architecture. If it weren’t for him, the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square would be abutted by an extension that included an unsightly 92-foot glass tower. But in 1984 the Prince used a speech marking the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects to attack Peter Ahrends’ vision as a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”.
HIS intervention created such a storm over the proposed design that a new competition was held that resulted in an extension that is much more in keeping with the main gallery next door. Five years after the “carbuncle” controversy, Charles printed a manifesto in which he called for buildings that blended into the landscape, related to “human proportions” and respected our “indigenous roots”.
In 1993, he put his money where his mouth was and began work on Poundbury, an extension to the Dorset town of FLYING HIGH: It may look glamorous flying by helicopter but Charles has the most royal engagements, left. In 1976 he founded the Prince’s Trust, below Dorchester, built on land belonging to his Duchy of Cornwall estate. The snootier elements of the architectural community dismissed it as “a feudal Disneyland” with its hotch-potch of styles but it is seen as a success and plans are afoot for Poundbury mark 2, at Nansledan outside Newquay in Cornwall.
And Charles is passionate about the natural environment too. Long before it became fashionable he railed against climate change and spoke out in favour of organic farming. Indeed he launched his own organic brand called Duchy Originals in 1990 at a time when fertiliser-free farming was in its infancy. Today – in partnership with Waitrose – it sells more than 230 different sustainably produced products.
CONSTITUTIONALLY, for years there were rumours of inappropriate meddling in political affairs in the form of “black spider” memos, so-called because of the Prince’s spindly handwriting and abundant use of underlining and exclamation marks. But when 27 letters sent to seven government departments between September 2004 and March 2005 were released in 2015 following a legal campaign by The Guardian newspaper, they turned out to be eccentric rather than sinister.
One addressed to an environment minister raised the plight of the Patagonian toothfish – such was its decline due to illegal fishing that the albatross, which relied on a diet of toothfish for its survival, was suffering too.
At home Charles also comes across as Mr Nice Guy. His sons William and Harry are greeted warmly with kisses on the cheek and they all seem to enjoy each other’s company. But perhaps his prime virtue is patience. The Queen has six ladies-in-waiting but only one gentlemanin-waiting: her son Charles. If and when he ever becomes king he will be the oldest prince to be crowned monarch. William IV was a comparatively sprightly 64 when he took the throne in 1830.
Yes, the Duchy of Cornwall brings him in a handsome £22.5million a year, yes he has the use of a portfolio of palaces and yes he travels in private jets, helicopters, limos and horse-drawn carriages. But as he once confided to the TV presenter Selina Scott, he feels “totally trapped” by his destiny.
Fortunately for us he clearly has a sense of duty.