My marriage was a Greek tragedy

REVEALED: EXTRAORDINARY LETTERS FROM PRINCE CHARLES TO EX-US FIRST LADY NANCY REAGAN

BRITAIN’S Prince of Wales agonises over what he writes, whether it is for public consumption or private and personal. He chooses every word carefully. Charles knows that after more than half a century as a player on the world stage, his words will matter. Yet for all the considerable care he takes, it is wrong to pigeonhole him as a man of retrained emotion, a cold fish.

Some critics have completely missed his passion, his warmth and his humour – all evident in these extraordinary letters to America’s former First Lady, Nancy Reagan.

Here is a very different side of Britain’s future king, at times anguished, funny, supportive, loving. The correspondence shows, for example, how Charles reached out for help during the darkest days when his marriage to Diana was collapsing.

He is clearly devastated, not only for his and Diana’s sake, but for that of his children, the country and the institution of Britain’s monarchy, too.

It is clear to me – as a royal correspondent who covered the story of the breakdown at the time – that his remarks are made in genuine sorrow.

They show a sensitive side to him, strong rather than selfpitying.

And at times these letters are heartbreaking, especially when he addresses the death of his grandmother, the Queen Mother.

He is, after all, a deep-thinking man who cares profoundly about issues and, perhaps more importantly, people.

He will always have the good of his future subjects in the United Kingdom at heart.

While his sons, Princes William and Harry, have been rightly praised for wearing their hearts on their sleeves, discussing their own mental health and dropping the stiff-upper-lip attitude so often associated with the British royal family, there is no monopoly on openness or empathy.

As these letters show, their father was there first.

Too easily dismissed by many, in this respect at least, Charles has been ahead of his time – although, yes, he is a traditional man, a man of his generation.

Even in today’s world of texts and emails, a handwritten letter is, to him, still the natural choice.