Bodyguards ‘shed helping Charles to
PRINCE Charles’s royal protection officers often end up “covered in blood” because he insists on taking them hedgelaying – even though he is 69.
In a new BBC documentary, Prince Harry says his father still enjoys the traditional country way of creating natural-style hedges to enclose cattle without the use of commercial fencing.
Prince Harry said: “He takes his policeman hedge-laying. Some come back covered in blood because at some point something he has been cutting has flung up.
Crazy
“Probably the Met are going to go crazy at this, like health and safety, but he is there, he has got his gloves, he has got his goggles, he has got all the right kit, don’t worry.
“But whichever policeman is on duty at the time puts the sledgehammer and axe in the boot of the car. Off they go. They spend two hours wrestling with bushes to try to lay a hedge because he hates fences. Full credit to him and his policeman.”
Prince William added: “They come back looking like they have been in a fight. He isn’t just a big voice standing up rattling the drum the whole time. There is genuine substance behind what
SEVEN-FOR-70 HERITAGE PLAN WILL MARK
PRINCE Charles is to mark his 70th birthday by supporting seven new community regeneration projects building on the success of his £45million purchase and restoration of an 18th-century Palladian mansion.
He wants to create jobs in blighted communities, training local people to revive traditional skills used in historic buildings, exploiting the success of his project at Dumfries House in Ayrshire as a blueprint.
He and his staff have set out to pick “Seven for 70” he is talking about. He loves his hedge-laying.”
In the new BBC documentary called Prince, Son And Heir: Charles At 70, the heir to the throne talks to some youngsters on a Prince’s Trust scheme.
He tells them: “Hedge-laying is very good value. I do that, very badly.”
The documentary had exclusive access to the Prince over the past 12 months, both at work and behind the scenes, at home and abroad.
By the time he reaches his 70th high-impact heritage regeneration projects.
Some are still being finalised but he has already chosen to help four.
They include a new Highland Games Centre on Deeside; a £5million restoration of Coventry’s Grade II-listed Drapers’ Hall; renovation of the ruins of Strata Florida Abbey in Ceredigion, Wales; and a garden folly at The Walled Garden at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland.
Charles, who flew from The Gambia to Ghana yesterday on the second leg of a nine-day birthday on Wednesday week, he will have been involved in public affairs for 50 years, championing environmental and social issues long before they reached the mainstream, from plastic waste and global warming to lack of opportunity for young people.
The documentary charts the Prince’s working life at a time when he is taking on an increasing amount of duties in support of the Queen.
He is seen on working visits to County Durham, Cornwall and the Brecon Beacons, and at home