The Prince Charles Letters (14 page)

Fraternally, yours

HRH The Prince of Wales

Jonathon Porritt

Friends of the Earth

26–28 Underwood Street

London

England

8 February 2002

If you’ve had any of the FoE staff working on this inflatable Charleses idea, stand them down! The things have just come in. Looking at them, I think the manufacturers have mistaken me for the late Tony Hancock. They’re going straight in the incinerator.

HRH The Prince of Wales

John Prescott

House of Commons

London

England

12 July 2002

Could I pick your brains for a moment? I’m venturing up to the North to speak at a conference on urban regeneration. Inevitably, there will be Northerners in attendance. I always make a point, as the Sikh community is aware, of greeting those groups who reflect the wonderful diversity of Great Britain in a manner familiar to them, so help me out here. Which of the following are acceptable because I’m sure I’ve imagined at least one of them:

‘A’reet?’

‘Ay up!’

‘Na’ then!’

‘Nobbut!’

‘Cock!’

If you could put ticks and crosses in red pen, please, next to each, it’d make for a splendid ‘aide memoire’.

Yours, ‘ba’tat’

HRH The Prince of Wales

John Prescott

House of Commons

London

England

8 August 2002

Well, Prescott

I read they’re calling you ‘Two Jags’ on account of you owning two cars. I suppose, if a man is to be nicknamed thus, then they should be calling me Prince ‘Three Jeeps, A Mercedes, Two Bentleys, One Private Plane, One Yacht’ Charles. But they don’t, you see. Why is that, I wonder? Why is it funny that you own two Jaguars? Is it because it’s commonly assumed that a fellow who speaks like you should consider himself lucky to own a bicycle? I’m not making fun of you (I know you are sensitive about that), I am sincerely musing on the irony of life.

I enjoy our correspondence. It is good that we can chat like this, as ‘equals’.

Yours, really most sincerely

HRH The Prince of Wales

John Prescott

House of Commons

London

England

19 March 2003

It always dismays me when satirists and politicians lambast you for your occasionally mangled syntax. They forget you have travelled further up the social scale to high office than they themselves and your mistakes are to be expected. May I offer a useful ‘rejoinder’ next time this happens? It’s adapted from the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise in a sketch they did with André Previn, a famous conductor. When they accuse you of talking nonsense, tell them, ‘I’m saying all the right words – but not necessarily in the right order’. I think you’d hear very little from the ‘scoffers’ after this!

Helpfully, yours

HRH The Prince of Wales

John Prescott

House of Commons

London

England

20 March 2003

Something that’s always puzzled me about Yorkshiremen – considering their aversion to aitches, a remarkable number of the county’s place-names begin with the letter: Huddersfield, Hebden Bridge, Halifax, Hull, Harrogate, Holbeck, Holmfirth, Heckmondwicke, and many, many more. Were these names by any chance imposed by one’s Norman ancestors, deliberately intended as ‘’umiliating’ to their alphabetically defective Northern inferiors and intended to keep them in their ‘place’ as they tried vainly to pronounce them? Perhaps you could look into the matter.

Yours, inquisitively

HRH The Prince of Wales

David Blunkett

Home Secretary

House of Commons

London

England

16 April 2003

Dear Mr Blunkett

It seems to me that fellows in my position, the ‘haves’, bear a duty to the ‘have nots’ to give something back. In this spirit, I have a large, rusty old septic tank on my grounds. It strikes me that with a bit of elbow grease, application and ‘can do’ spirit, it could be converted into a small-but-handy, inner-city outdoor swimming pool.

Do please have someone send round a few lads from a socially deprived area with time on their hands and a lorry to fetch the thing. It would clear both my conscience and a bit of space on my grounds.

Yours, against disadvantage

HRH The Prince of Wales

John Prescott

House of Commons

London

England

28 April 2006

Dear Mr Prescott

I must say, I rather enjoy our weekly correspondences – on my part, at any rate. It’s a shame that the affairs of the day, as you go about doing whatever it is that you actually do, prevent you from answering my letters as often as you would like, if at all.

It pains me to know that you are currently suffering difficulties in what my Uncle Dickie used to call the ‘rumpers-pumpers department’. I do miss Dickie. Whenever I reflect upon him, I always dryly remark, much as Mrs Thatcher said of Mr Whitelaw, that every prime minister needs a Willie, so every prince needs a Lord Mountbatten.

I have spoken before about the longings that can beset men of office, of action. We have appetites, which for decency’s sake, we must suppress. In the throes of such longings, I take various courses of action. First, open a window. Sometimes a simple act of ventilation does the trick. Second, conjure up a visual memory of the late Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. If that doesn’t work, here is a method my father taught me: submit to bee stings. A single visit to a hive per month in which you deliberately subject yourself to these animals has a remarkably preserving effect as well as sapping the body of excessive urges: nature’s own remedies are the best, don’t you feel?

Yours, in physical and mental harmony

HRH The Prince of Wales

Jonathon Porritt

Friends of the Earth

26–28 Underwood Street

London

England

13 May 2006

Our time on Planet Earth may be short, Porritt, my old friend, so I’ll get straight to the point: I’ve been mulling over this for a few days and just about reduced the thing to bullet points, which I thought I’d run past your good self for suggestions. I have a contention and it is this:

THE UK MONARCHY IS THE MOST ECO-EFFICIENT MEANS OF PRESIDING OVER THE COUNTRY

• 
Think about it: for one thing, we’re unelected. This makes for huge paper savings in that it precludes the need for ballots every few years. Factor in the savings in timber – there’s no need for ballot boxes, as well as lead savings – those little pencils, you know.

• 
Golden carriages are the most efficacious and environmentally ‘clean’ way of getting about London.

• 
The Monarch only addresses the people once a year and then for ten minutes. There’s none of this 24-hour Parliamentary Channel nonsense – an enormous saving in electricity.

Actually, that was all I could think of. Do you have any more? Not to resort to ‘sound bites’, but I simply wish to point out that those who would do away with us might well be throwing away the baby of ecological sustainability with the bathwater of impetuous Republicanism. Do you not agree? I expect you must.

Yours, logically and ecologically

HRH The Prince of Wales

John Prescott

House of Commons

London

England

1 May 2008

I was a little put out to read that you have in the past suffered from the eating disorder known as bulimia. As you probably know my late, former wife was stricken by this disease and so I have a little insight into what it involves. I just wished to say this: if you should ever feel the need to talk, privately and discreetly about your condition, then please do not hesitate to seek out one of the many experienced counsellors qualified in this field. I believe some of them may be in the phonebook.

Yours, concernedly

HRH The Prince of Wales

Peter Mandelson

House of Lords

London

England

6 June 2009

Congratulations, my Lord, on your elevation to the peerage. I didn’t think you socialists believed in taking ermine so it’s good to see one or two of you are prepared to take the ‘broad view’. I’ve followed your career with great interest from the days when you sported that rather intriguing moustache to your present eminence. That being so, I know you will take what I’m about to say in the friendly and constructive way it’s intended.

I do fear you come across as a somewhat angular, malign sort of fellow. When watching you on the television set, I can’t help but think of Cardinal Richelieu in his flowing red robes or of some high-up cleric travelling across twelfth-century Europe in a caravan, torturing deviants from the true faith. What can be done to soften this a little, I wonder? I too have faced ‘public image’ difficulties. Have you, perhaps, considered writing a children’s book or visiting a discotheque and being seen to ‘let your hair down’ within reasonable bounds, or taking a very young wife? These are just thoughts.

Yours, in elevation

HRH The Prince of Wales

Nigel Farage

UK Independence Party

PO Box 408

Newton Abbot

Devon

England

17 November 2009

Dear Mr Farage

I want to make it clear from the ‘outset’ that I’m not a political person. Some may think a greater integration with Europe is a good thing; others, like yourself, disagree. However, I was rather tickled by the following thought and decided there was no harm in sharing it with you. You may wish to use it on
Question Time
, a programme on which you seem to appear on a fortnightly basis. You might deliver it as follows:

‘I believe we’re getting to the stage where Brussels bureaucrats will insist His Royal Highness Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, change the name of his estate “Poundbury” to “Eurobury”.’

[Laughter]

When making this quip, I’d advise you to stick to it as written – otherwise, the rhythm of the comedy is put out.

I must reiterate that I do not have any declared position on Europe and would ask you do not accredit me with this joke. You might wish to make a donation of £25 to The Prince’s Trust, however.

Yours, in jest

HRH The Prince of Wales

David Cameron

The Conservative Party

Millbank Tower

30 Millbank

London

England

8 May 2010

Dear Mr Cameron

I realise you Honourable Gentlemen are apt to cut up somewhat rusty at Royal interventions in political affairs, but in this delicate period of ‘Hung Parliament’ may I pitch in with a constructive suggestion – Con/Lib/Lab coalition?

Hang it all, it seems politics nowadays is a matter of slinging mud where we should be tilling the soil. It seems all three parties are agreed on the absolute basics – the need to go forward together, to do something about litter in the streets, getting young people out and about rather than frowsting indoors and rediscovering our spirituality as a kingdom.

Of course such a coalition would require a neutral leader so as not to get anyone’s backs up. Such a person would need to be an outsider, not considered ‘political’ but someone who his entire adult life has been in contact with politicians of all hues, a man with some sort of vision (of Britain, in particular) and who is currently in search of some sort of role. Do any names spring to mind?

Yours, and at your immediate disposal

HRH The Prince of Wales

PS I know a fellow called ‘Cameron’ – one of the beaters at Balmoral. I expect you know him though curiously, he’d never heard of you.

Andrew Lansley

Secretary of State for Health

House of Commons

London

England

1 June 2010

Dear Mr Lansley

A number of my staff are wont to take ‘cigarette breaks’ throughout the day. I must say, one or two of them smoke desperately hard – I sometimes stare from my bay window on to the back courtyard and see them mumbling to each other and shaking their heads, no doubt in sadness at the state of the world. I’ve noticed, however, rummaging through my recycling bin that their packets are emblazoned with bold ‘Health Warnings’.

I wonder if such warnings could not be attached to the sides of some of our modern buildings? Of course one would rather such carbuncles were banned but failing this, large inscriptions in black lettering reading, let’s say, ‘WARNING: THIS BUILDING EMPHASISES THE MECHANICAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL’ or ‘WARNING: THIS BUILDING MAY CAUSE A CERTAIN IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE INNER SELF’ would do the job, I fancy. Could you have your team draw up some drafts? No hurry, anytime in the next fortnight would do.

Yours, in earnest

HRH The Prince of Wales

Nick Clegg

House of Commons

London

England

12 June 2010

Dear Mr Clegg

So, the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, eh? Bet you didn’t anticipate that one when the results came through on election night and ‘Cleggmania’ seemed as distant a memory as ‘Osmond-mania’. But here you are, and there it is. We all hope you do a good job and stick to your principles, mobile as they are in this day and age of ‘compromise’.

You know, Mr Clegg, you remind me of a boy with whom I was acquainted at Gordonstoun. His name, oddly enough, was ‘Nick’ or ‘Nicky’. There we both were on the first day during breaktime. The other boys were laughing and playing various games – British Bulldog, Tag, Chinese Burns, that sort of thing … But we found it hard to join in and stood on our own, not able to make a connection with any of the other boys as they played; afraid, perhaps, that they’d tell us to go away and play somewhere else. One experiences loneliness in different ways and at different times in life but that sort of loneliness is the keenest sort, I always feel – young, estranged from parents and from one’s supposed peers with nobody giving a damn.

I looked across at Nick. He was from another house, but he was in the same boat. We exchanged glances, half-smiled and shyly advancing towards each other along the chicken wire perimeter, mumbled our hellos and got talking. I felt a kinship with Nick: we had lots in common. We talked about Airfix, about hating being away from home and our favourite radio shows; we played word games like ‘The Minister’s Cat’. His company was a great comfort, a diversion. We spoke again over the next few days – we had a sort of tacit agreement: same time, same place. We agreed we’d look out for each other.