Charles ducks out of Windsor bash to host workers’ party

WOULD you tear yourself away from a glittering royal party when Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne were among the guests, and Robbie Williams was the wedding singer?

That’s exactly what Prince Charles did on Friday night.

Resisting the temptation to linger at Royal Lodge, Windsor, for the evening stage of Princess Eugenie’s wedding, Charles flew to Scotland to prepare for a very different type of party he was hosting the next day.

I can reveal that Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, held a big thank-you bash for around 100 local traders near Birkhall, their home on the Balmoral Estate.

‘Most of the local suppliers are invited to say thanks for the year,’ explains Ballater butcher John Sinclair, owner of HM Sheridan which holds Royal Warrants from the Queen and the Prince — or the Duke of Rothesay, as he is known north of the border.

But this year, adds Sinclair, he did not attend the Birkhall Dance, in a bid to ease the pressure on the royal couple. ‘There are so many people,’ he explains, adding that guests are treated to generous refreshments during the festivities held ‘partly inside, partly outside in the grounds of Birkhall’.

One source noted: ‘ One might almost say this was a case of the “People’s Prince” as he made such fast tracks from the royal castle.’

A Clarence House spokesman says it cannot comment on a private engagement. Similar discretion is exhibited by locals, among them Pamela Chalmers, whose family bakery business has a shop in Ballater. ‘ We supply [Balmoral] Castle, which we’re allowed to say, but there are things you keep your distance with,’ she explains.

All rather different from the online global exposure to which the evening at Royal Lodge was treated by some of Eugenie’s more excitable guests.