Fit for a King

By

APPOINTMENT

As Prince of Wales, King Charles was a regular visitor to the Shire region, attending events in Wales every year and Cheshire, Shropshire and the Wirral often. Many readers had the opportunity to meet him. We are delighted to share your experiences on these pages…

Plenty of Shire readers will remember, or have heard family members reminisce about the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales in July 1969. It was a massive affair; an open-air stage was built within Caernarfon Castle to host almost 4,000 guests, 3,500 of whom were people who lived and worked in Wales – plus about 2,500 members of the three Armed Forces. Thousands of wellwishers lined the streets of Caernarfon, 500 million watched on television and street parties were held across the UK to honour the young man of 20 who would one day be King.

Amanda Lunt is Experiences and Partnerships Curator for the National Trust, North Region, and met the then Prince in summer 2010 when he visited Quarry Bank, an NT site in Cheshire.

“As President of the National Trust, His Majesty regularly undertook visits to our sites,” said Amanda, who at the time was undertook visits to our sites,” said Amanda, who at the time was

DID YOU KNOW? The King is an honorary member of the Royal Watercolour Society, and his paintings have sold for more than £1.5 million

When Froncysyllte was named Welsh Village of the Year for 2008, locals had another surprise in store when Charles visited to see it for himself. The then Prince visited a cafe and a pub, took a boat trip and enjoyed a song from the Fron Male Voice Choir.

With Amanda Lunt at Quarry Bank

Heritage Manager. “This was a visit at short notice and my role was to greet His Royal Highness and take him around the gardens, the Apprentice House and the Mill building. I also introduced him to some of our team and to schoolchildren from Styal primary school. We were about to embark on a large multi-million project and this was a pre-visit to view our plans for the future.”

The visit lasted around an hour. “I’d met the Prince a number of times before,” Amanda told us, “and on this visit he reminded me we had met just months earlier in Worcestershire, in a very different setting, with his wife, then the Duchess of Cornwall.

Depth of knowledge

“Whenever I’ve met him, I’ve been struck with the depth of his knowledge about what he is seeing,” said Amanda. “He is clearly well-briefed and takes pains to understand what he is going to be looking at; he asks relevant and searching questions, and is clearly passionate about the work we do. I am also struck by his ability to engage with staff on topics that relate to their work, which can be a broad range of things. He helps to set them at ease, which I’ve witnessed when he is engaging with the general public.”

In January 2018 the King returned to Quarry Bank, this time to see the results of the redevelopment work. This time it was a longer visit of almost two hours. Amanda said: “We visited newly conserved parts of the site, Styal village, the school, gardens and the restoration works within the woods. As we walked through the woods together we had a conversation on our work as a charity, and also discussed the importance of woodland habitats and their role in climate action. “It was a damp, cold January day but despite being a largely outdoor visit his enthusiasm to meet with people and spend time with them was undiminished.” © Ieuan Williams Unveiled: the Fire & Passion sculpture at the Royal Welsh Showground

Royal reception

“King Charles is always warmly received, as he is pretty comfortable everywhere,” added Harry. “They both found it easy to talk to everyone at the show and clearly very much enjoyed

looking at stock and meeting people.”

The King’s interest in farming has naturally led him to visit one of the country’s best known agricultural colleges, Reaseheath, near Nantwich, in south Cheshire, on 14th February 2005.

King Charles, who had announced his forthcoming marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles just days before, was cheered by staff and students who were delighted to be among the first in the country to offer him their best wishes.

Reaseheath florist Sarah Parker pressed home the romantic theme by presenting His Majesty with a heart-shaped, hand-tied bouquet of 30 Black Baccara roses. She wished him and Camilla every happiness and was rewarded with a handshake and a chat. “It’s not every girl who gets wished a Happy Valentine’s Day by the Prince of Wales!” she said at the time.

In September 2012 the King started his visit to Ludlow with a tour of St Laurence’s Church to see work on a Jubilee garden, then headed to the Enginuity museum, before visiting his charity In Kind Direct in Telford

The whole village greeted him when he visited Llanymynech in 1980, and he met with Joy Hill, aged 80, who after retiring as head steward at Chirk Castle worked for a further 13 years at Bodnant Garden

Taking it all in

King Charles started a week-long visit to Wales in summer 2021 at the headquarters of Iceland Foods, in Deeside, where he had a tour of the company’s sustainability projects, community initiatives and reaction to the pandemic and panic-buying. He was welcomed by Lord Lieutenant of Clwyd, Harry Fetherstonhaugh, and introduced to founder and executive chairman, Sir Malcolm Walker, chief executive Tarsem Dhaliwal, managing director Richard Walker and head of commercial Paul Dhaliwal.

Later that day he went to Wockhardt UK in Wrexham, in the light of the company’s key role in the Covid vaccination rollout. Wockhardt has been instrumental in the manufacture of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and carries out the ‘fill and finish’ stage of the process, which involves dispensing the vaccine into vials ready to be sent out across the country.

Previously, in July 2019, Harry Fetherstonhaugh had escorted the then Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall during a visit to the Royal Welsh Showground, in his role as show director.

“The King has always greatly supported countryside affairs, rural employment, agriculture and wildlife,” said Harry, who is now President of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society. “He has a great knowledge of topics like hedges and drywalls. He usually spends three to four hours at the show, taking it all in; he was very keen on the forestry section.

“At this show in 2019 he unveiled a beautiful statue made of horseshoes, the eyes of which are made from two small horseshoes donated by Queen Elizabeth personally, from two of her horses.” Named Fire & Passion, the life-sized sculpture of a Welsh cob stallion by Robert Rattray is a striking addition to the Royal Welsh showground, and took the sculptor four months to construct, using over 700 horseshoes.

Their Royal Highnesses also officially opened a new garden at the International Pavilion, created specifically to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Charles’ investiture as Prince of Wales, met with exhibitors, stewards, traders and showgoers, and presented a number of prizes in the judging rings.

Opening the new garden at the RWAS International Pavilion

© Glyn Evans

Unscheduled stops

Five year-old best friends Lucy Jones and Cerys Owen went one better by giving Prince Charles a hand-made engagement card and boldly asking him what he had bought Camilla for a Valentine’s present. Describing the card as “terrific” and laughing, Prince Charles replied, “I’m not letting on about that!”

His Majesty made several unscheduled stops at Reeseheath, talking to service engineering apprentices in the college’s workshops and to staff, who came out of their offices to line his route. He broke away from his accompanying party to chat to 18-year-old horticulture student Jonathan Marriott, a BTEC First Diploma student, who with course members had prepared and planted a welcoming border with shrubs from the college’s RHS Gold Medal-winning garden.

Jonathan joked with him that the students, aged 16 to 18, had been out in the cold, snow and rain to complete the project in time!

Royal Warrant

Estate owner Lord Robert Vaughan Newborough was delighted to have been granted a Royal Warrant of Appointment to

HRH the Prince of Wales for Rhug Organic Farm, which incorporates the farm, the wholesale meat business, the cutting plant, the butcher’s counter at Rhug Farm shop and Rhug’s stall at London’s Borough Market.

The warrant states that the farm is certified, “by command of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, to supply organic meat to His Royal Highness’ households”. Rhug has been supplying meat to the Royal households for the past six years, including

Welsh lamb, chickens, turkeys and bison meat. “It was a very special day when the King and Queen Consort visited the Rhug Estate, and they were wonderful; greeting and talking to as many people

Impressed by their environmental programme, July 2018 saw King Charles given a lesson on newts, pond dipping and how to sell 20,000 eggs a year by the children of Ysgol Sian Sior in Llandudno

Food standards

Still at Reeseheath, the then Prince, who is Patron of the Specialist Cheesemakers Association, spent two hours attending an event organised by the Food Standards Agency. His visit focused on the success of two FSA-sponsored initiatives: specialist cheesemaking training for environmental health officers, and food safety management awareness for cheesemakers. He was accompanied by Sir John Krebs, Chairman of the Food Standards Agency.

His Royal Highness took the opportunity to try his hand at practical cheesemaking and then met small groups of environmental health officers and cheesemakers to discuss how shared understanding of food safety management has helped to develop relationships between the two parties. Landing on the college sports pitches in a Sikorsky S76 helicopter, he was received by the Vice Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire, Viscount Ashbrook, and Viscountess Ashbrook, Reaseheath principal Meredydd David and chairman of governors John Platt. David had been awarded an OBE in 2009 for services to local and national further education and was made a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society in 2017. “Everyone at the college was thrilled by the visit,” said Meredydd. “As well as being extremely interested in the courses we offer at the college, Prince Charles was in a very relaxed

and happy mood and asked several members of staff and students if they were enjoying their time here.” The King is well known for his interest in environmental issues, and this led to his visiting the Rhug Estate, near Corwen, only a few years ago, in April 2018. At Reeseheath College: florist Sarah Parker presented a posy to the future King

DID YOU KNOW?

King Charles was present at the birth of both of his sons, William and Harry, which broke Royal precedent

Presenting principal Meredydd David with his OBE; left, hands-on in the dairy-processing halls In 1978 King Charles opened the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and a year later visited Ironbridge to mark its 200th anniversary

With the future Queen Consort at the opening of Rhug Farm Shop in 2004

and staff as possible,” Lord Newborough told us. “It was one of those days you never forget. We had a good laugh when we were demonstrating the sheepdog putting the hens to bed in their shed and things didn’t quite go to plan!

“The King talked to people with broad knowledge of country life, and everyone enjoyed meeting them. The Queen Consort was also a wonderful support to him on the visit, talking and laughing with everyone she met.”

Animal welfare

This was not the first time the two men had met. “I had previously hosted him when he opened our farm shop in 2013,” explained Lord Newborough. “Also at the investiture in 1969, and more recently at

Buckingham Palace at a gathering of Royal Warrant holders.

“Once, on a farm tour, we spoke and shared our belief in trying to do what we could to help the environment and produce food in the most sustainable way. We discussed animal welfare issues and planting hedgerows, and many other things to do with farming organically.”

Rhug Farm is self-contained and a true ‘field-to-plate’ operation, applying the highest standard of sustainability.

Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant received the Royal seal of approval in 2009 when the then Prince met workers and representatives of the UK motor industry and was given a preview of the new Astra and taken on a tour of the production line

Significant interest

When we asked John Davies how many times he’d met King Charles over the past 20 years, there were so many he couldn’t list them all! “At Highgrove, the Royal Welsh Show, Buckingham Palace, various locations in Pembrokeshire, and other parts of Wales as well,” he told us.

“There were two occasions, in 2012 and 2019, as chairman of the board of directors of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, when I accompanied the King and the then Duchess of Cornwall,” said John. “It is always a pleasure to have their company. They are so close to rural matters, and take a significant interest in what happens. They are very clever at making you feel very much at ease with them.

“The King is always interested in other people, always keen on rural charities. When I was chair of the rural charity Tir Dewi, which helps farmers and farming families in crisis, he supported us with a significant donation, and has asked me on every occasion since how things are with the charity. He also invited me to Highgrove to meet with representatives of the other charities he supports through the Prince of Wales Countryside Fund.”

John found that the King’s brief was always well-read; he was always very knowledgeable, and more than accommodating to go off-script or go off the itinerary. He added that a huge amount of humour surrounds the King in his discussion and dialogue, which is what makes everyone feel so comfortable in his company.

“The sense of duty and obligation is played out at every visit, and exceedingly well,” he added.

Now that the title of Prince of Wales has passed to Prince William, we may expect fewer visits from King Charles to the Shire patch. But his affection for Wales, as well as the rural communities in Shropshire and Cheshire, will doubtless bring him back many times in the future.

Greeting John Davies at the Royal Welsh Show in 2013