‘The Queen Consort is brave and believes in what we are doing’
Reading has always been important to The Queen Consort, who has been Patron of our charity since 2010. When she presented the Orange Prize for Fiction earlier that year, she talked not only about what reading meant to her, but also about its importance in society and the key role it plays in allowing children and adults to fulfil their potential.
I got a phone call from one of my team at the event that night, saying: ‘The [then] Duchess of Cornwall has just said everything we believe in.’ We contacted Clarence House and said we’d love to invite Her Royal Highness to see the work we do.
The first event she did with us was in Wiltshire, visiting a huge library project we were involved with, and she was amazing. She just sat down with the parents and children and bonded immediately. The thing that makes her so brilliant to work with is that she approaches literacy and family reading issues as a parent and somebody who has read to her children and grandchildren. When she is reading to children at school, she’ll choose books that she enjoys herself because she knows children will like them, too, if she can do the voices and tell the stories.
We have also taken her into prisons. We run a nightly show on National Prison Radio called Books Unlocked and she came to visit the reading group at HMP Brixton, which was part of the show, and spoke to them. They had this extraordinary conversation where they were sharing their experiences of reading.
We are marking the Coronation by creating 50 Coronation Libraries across the UK, targeting communities with the lowest levels of literacy. I am so grateful for what The Queen Consort has done for our project. She has given us confidence and inspired our growth. She works hard for us – and not in easy ways. She is brave and believes in what we are doing. • literacytrust.org.uk/goodhousekeeping