Camilla: I was pony mad as a child... Black Beauty makes me cry to this day
THE DUCHESS of Cornwall has revealed she was a “pony mad” child and her favourite book was Black Beauty.
Camilla, 74, said even now thinking about the death of Black Beauty’s closest friend Ginger still makes her tearful.
The Duchess also stressed the importance of parents reading to their children as she recalled how her father Major Bruce Shand would take time to read to her and her younger siblings Annabel and Mark.
These bedtime readings would install a lifetime love for books, she told thetoday programme broadcast on
BBC Radio 4 today.
Also appearing on the Boxing Day special, guest edited by Lord Dobbs, will be Prince Charles who reads an extract from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Recalling how the Anna Sewell classic Black Beauty from 1877 made a lasting impression on her, the Duchess said: “In those days I was a sort of pony mad child, and I thought of very little else apart from horses and ponies and charging about on them, so I think Black Beauty was the first book that stuck in my mind.
“I can see it now – there was Ginger. Every time I think about poor old Ginger with her head hanging out of the cart with her tongue hanging, it makes me cry now. I think that was one of my favourites.
“Another book that my father used to read to us all the time because he loved a bit of adventure, wasthe Scarlet Pimpernel, and he became this great hero in all our eyes and I loved all the adventures.”
Camilla, who is the patron of a number of literacy charities, recently launched The Duchess of Cornwall’s Reading Room on Instagram for book lovers.
She also revealed some of the books she has bought for her grandchildren this Christmas. She said: “I have a granddaughter that’s very into Philip Pullman and she’s been through His Dark
Materials so I got her La Belle Sauvage. And the twin boys, one I got Dracula and the other I put on to Lord Ofthe Rings…so those are the children’s books.”
She also told Lord Dobbs, an award-winning author whose works include political thriller House Of Cards: “If you learn to read, however difficult your life is at the time, you can pick up a book and you can escape.
“You can laugh, you can cry, it just takes you out of the real world and it gives you a different dimension to life.”
Other guests who are taking the editorial reins this week include author James Rebanks, footballer Raheem Sterling, former head of the British Army General Sir Nick Carter, primatologist Dr Jane Goodall, former Archdeacon of Southend Mina Smallman and Microsoft corporate vice president Jacky Wright.
Today, Radio 4, 6am-9am