Boy’s plea to palace earns unexpected royal visit
The Prince of Wales delighted crowds by revealing Princess Charlotte’s favourite joke yesterday during a surprise school visit in the West Midlands.
The future King dropped in on Freddie Hadley, 12, at St Michael’s Church of England High School in Rowley Regis, after the youngster wrote to him inviting him to see the school’s mental health initiatives.
Prince William walked up to
Freddie and shook hands when he arrived unannounced.
The Prince had replied to the schoolboy’s letter on social media in October last year, telling the Year 8 pupil to “please keep up this important work”.
The school runs a number of wellbeing initiatives. Prince William joined a group of pupils, including Freddie, from the all-male Matrix Project, which runs the ‘Am I Manly Enough?’ campaign tackling the stigma about male mental health.
The group also takes part in a school show, broadcast on local radio, on the topic, and lightens the issue by having a segment on “dad jokes”.
In his pre-recorded piece, the Prince told the listeners: “I’ve been asked to produce a dad joke so I’m trying to channel Jack Whitehall, because most of his jokes are pretty dad-like.
“I think what I’ll do, is I’ll say a joke which is Charlotte’s favourite joke at the moment, she keeps telling me.”
Prince William said “knock knock”, and when the pupils said “who’s there”, the royal replied “Interrupting cow” – and as the group tried to say “interrupting cow who?”, he made them laugh by saying “Mooo”.
Freddie said: “I couldn’t get my head around it. I’m meeting Prince William, the future king – it’s insane really.
“I’m just standing there and I see Prince William walking down the drive and I’m like: Wow, all this work’s finally paid off.”