“No disaster if Britain withdrew from Commonwealth,” said Prince Charles

This week in 1977, Prince Charles declared: “I do not think it would be a disaster if Britain withdrew from the Commonwealth. I am sure it could survive without Britain.”

He said that Britain represented the centre of the Commonwealth only because the Queen, as its head, resided in London.

He added: “I personally believe the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth, has quite an important part in keeping the whole thing together.”

The Prince was answering questions at the Commonwealth Youth Conference 1977 in London.

David Morgan became the youngest person to swim the English Channel, at the age of 13.

The Scarborough boy made the crossing from Dover to Wissant, near Calais, in 11 hours 5 minutes.

He took the record previously held by an Egyptian girl, Ablah Khairi, who was three weeks older than he was when she succeeded in 1974.

Morgan’s record was broken in 1979 when Marcus Hooper made the 21-mile crossing from France aged 12 years and 53 days.

In 1988, 11-year-old Thomas Gregory broke the record set by Hooper, and he remains the youngest person to swim the English Channel.

Lord Harewood, a cousin of the Queen, was cleared of two motoring offences – with a little help from Mozart.

He successfully claimed at Bow Street Magistrates Court, in London, that he did not realise he’d backed into a parked car because he was listening to Mozart in his car.

Lord Harewood, who answered in the witness box to his full name of George Henry Hubert Lascelles, said he might have confused the sound of a burglar alarm, which was set off on the parked car, with a sustained clarinet note.

The magistrate accepted the explanation and dismissed two summonses alleging that Lord Harewood failed to stop after an accident, which caused damage to a parked MG, and also failing to report the accident.