Charles steams in to capital for birthday celebrations with stars
COMMUTERS at Cardiff Central Railway Station were left doing double takes yesterday when Prince Charles arrived in the royal train pulled by a steam locomotive.
As people hurried to work or to the shops, Charles began his tour of the capital by striding down platform three to meet the driver.
The heir to the throne climbed into the cab of Clan Line, which was built the same year he was born – 1948.
Driver Vince Henderson, 58, chatted to the royal and said afterwards: “He was asking odds and sods about the engine and about the coal, and he wished us all merry Christmas.
“The train is 70 years old, it was made the same year he was born and he knew that, he said so.”
On the platform, Charles met a group of young people who have taken part in a Prince’s Trust Cymru programme to equip them with skills for the rail industry.
During his day in Cardiff, the prince also visited the City Hospice in Whitchurch.
He was greeted by the hospice’s chief executive Liz Andrews and the organisation’s clinical lead Dr Margred Capel, who took him on a tour of the facilities.
He met with Luan Foster, 47, and her children Lara, 11, and Connor, 13, who lost their father to skin cancer earlier this year.
Tony Foster received home care support from the hospice before moving to support on site in the final few days of his life.
Lara and Connor presented Prince Charles with two handmade Christmas ornaments.
“It was fantastic, absolutely amazing,” Luan said. “Just to see them doing that it’s unbelievable. He spent quite a lot of time with us.
“He asked me if it was more stressful having to do this. I said no, it’s fantastic.
“Today will be something they will remember forever I think.”
The prince has been patron of the hospice since 1998.
He then attended a special celebration performance staged by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
The invited audience enjoyed recitals of Chopin and Bach, Shakespeare soliloquies and orchestral and choir performances of popular tunes, as well as the madcap Goon Show sketches.
Attending the celebration was Game of Thrones star Owen Teale, who confessed he was wrong to leave his native Wales to follow his dream of becoming an actor.
Teale, who trained at Guildford School of Acting, described the production by the students as “fantastic” and added: “It reminds me how wrong I was, but I thought I had to leave Wales to become an actor, but now this is the destination.
“I’m filming back here now, doing a series called A Discovery Of Witches. It’s filmed here, Venice and Oxford, and this is now one of the leading conservatoires in the world I’m guilty of a little pride.”
Cardiff-born actor Matthew Rhys launched the performance by telling the prince: “Sir, you’ve been this college’s most treasured patron for 19 years and we’re honoured to have you with us today.”
Rhys said of his Golden Globe nomination for his role as a KGB spy in US drama The Americans: “It’s always nice to be invited to the party, it was a nice moment.
“It’s always a little bizarre. You finish a project so long ago – we finished in March – and the nomination comes out and you go, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that’.”
The actor added about the birthday performance: “It’s amazing, it’s so immediate and apparent, the level of talent and the technical skill, I’ve been blown away – it’s incredible.”