The Prince Charles Letters (19 page)

I was privileged to travel to your country and may I suggest as your first order of business that you do something about the amount of litter in some of the outlying towns. I was driven through one area, which was mile after mile of ghastly mess – randomly strewn corrugated iron, bits of cloth hung over sticks, rusty old stewpots and so forth. It would probably require a squadron of bulldozers to sort it all out and clear it away, but I should get on to it right away, the sooner the better.

Yours, moving forward together

HRH The Prince of Wales

The Norwegian Ambassador

c/o Norwegian Embassy

Belgrave Square

London

England

12 January 1999

Dear Sir

I write to you on a matter of some delicacy. I’m optimistic, however, at the end of this correspondence our two countries can continue to move forward together as friends. Allow me to explain: we were in the drawing room the other evening, the whole family, when the conversation (which had been rather slow) turned for some reason towards the subject of Norway. My father, Prince Philip, stared into the fireplace and his brow darkened. For some reason, your country’s annual gesture of sending us a Christmas tree for Trafalgar Square in thanks for the efforts of our armed forces in World War II rather exercised him.

‘Norway!’ he spluttered. ‘Hauled their scraggy, surrendering Scandinavian backsides out of the Second World War and what do they give us in return? A tree, a bloody tree! Not even decorated, I’ll warrant. Well, thank you very much, you herring-munching suicide cases!’

‘Bloody right!’ piped up my grandmother, HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who had had, shall we say, a restful afternoon. ‘Quislings!’ she yelped.

‘Now, now … steady on, father,’ I interjected at this point. ‘The Norwegians, you know, they’ve made a tremendous and enriching post-war contribution, with any number of statesmen, artists, scientists, architects … gardeners?’

‘Name one!’ grunted Father.

And you know what? I couldn’t – which rather suspended the debate. I was wondering, Ambassador, if you could furnish me with a list of eminent post-war Norwegians that I might reel off the next time this topic comes up? It would help greatly if they were ones I’d already heard of, but had forgotten about to save having to read up. Oh, and no need to include that excitable football commentator – the ‘your boys took a hell of a beating’ fellow – I don’t think he’d cut much ice.

Internationally yours

HRH The Prince of Wales

The Norwegian Ambassador

c/o Norwegian Embassy

Belgrave Square

London

England

12 January 1999

Dear Sir

Thank you for the pamphlet prepared by your staff, with its list and potted biographies of eminent modern Norwegians.

I’m afraid, however, that I had heard of none of them. If you will recall, I did specify Norwegians I had heard of. Could you have your people prepare another piece of literature on that basis?

Yours, &c

HRH The Prince of Wales

George W. Bush

The White House

Washington

United States of America

20 January 2001

Dear Mr Bush

I am reliably informed by my people that you belong to one of the five oldest families in the United States and are distantly related to the English Royal Family, all of which makes your transformation into a cow-punching, ‘good old’ Texan country boy the more impressive.

I congratulate you on attaining the highest rank your country allows and am gladdened to hear you talk of compassionate conservatism. In other words, it’s always going to be the rich man at his castle, the poor man at his gate but for form’s sake, at least have the decency to make a sad face about it! We had a Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, who wasn’t always good at doing this. Mention the poor to her at a function and she was apt to look away and wrinkle her face, as if having caught a waft from the drains.

None of that for you! I hear you reach out to the Hispanics, to the ethnic communities, and most of all, to the regular, patriotic ‘Joe Six-Pack’ in his checked shirt, turning an honest dollar. I would urge you, Mr Bush, if anything not to lose sight of the well-to-do, the major wealth creators, the big company owners or the multi-billionaires. You will protect their interests too, won’t you? They, too, have their part to play in a harmonious, balanced society as well as everyday working patriots, who appear to be your natural sort.

Yours, in hope

HRH The Prince of Wales

George W. Bush

The White House

Washington

United States of America

20 January 2005

Dear Mr Bush

Well, it seems you have been voted in for a second term. The Americans must see something in you, I suppose. I’m glad you heeded my message about not allowing your oft-professed affinity with ‘regular’ humble folk to deflect from attending also to the interests of the well-to-do – you certainly seem to have done that.

Did you ever meet President Nixon? I did, in 1969. I would have supposed you President types were pushed for time, with fellows in dark glasses moving you along every few minutes, but at this function – at which he may have been the worse for wear – he spoke to me for fully an hour and a half about everything from HM The Queen to Russia, to China, to my marriage prospects, to being on constant guard against one’s enemies, to the Jewish people – for whom he no more cared than did my late grandmother. At one point he bade us both kneel in prayer to ‘the one Christian God’, after which I had to help him up – at which point he forgot who I was and mistaking me for an over-fussy aide, showered me with a stream of invective. I made my excuses and departed.

You’re a teetotaller, aren’t you, Mr Bush? Probably just as well, taken in the round.

Yours, &c

HRH The Prince of Wales

Georg Boomgaarden

German Ambassador to the UK

23 Belgrave Square

London

England

1 August 2005

Dear Ambassador Boomgaarden

It is a pleasure to correspond with you. We’re both busy men and the Germans are a proud people, so I think we can at long last dispense with referring to the whole World War II business – we’re past that. My father is of another generation and occasionally apt to remark crisply on the subject but we are of the younger generation, keen to ‘modernise and move forward together’, to use Churchill’s phrase.

As you may know, my youngest boy recently attended a fancy dress party dressed as a Nazi.
Jugend
will be
Jugend
, I suppose, but he didn’t realise the offence caused and I had to deliver him something of a ‘sermon’ about stereotypes and so forth. As a practical example, I had one of my staff send out for a Digital Versatile Disc (or ‘DVD’) of a German situation comedy series (
Rolf! Dein Schwanzstucker
) to scotch the idea Germans have no sense of humour. Unfortunately, on arrival, it had no subtitles.

I hoped, therefore, that you might come down to Highgrove – it’d be myself, you and Harry – and we could go through the DVD, frame by frame, with you translating the jokes and explaining to us why they are so amusing. I think this would make for a most stimulating, educating and, above all, uproarious evening. Now we are at peace, I suppose you have plenty of time on your hands.

Yours, in European brotherhood

HRH The Prince of Wales

Georg Boomgaarden

German Ambassador to the UK

23 Belgrave Square

London

England

4 August 2005

Dear Ambassador Boomgaarden

I am disappointed you are unable to find time in the foreseeable future to come down to Highgrove and talk Harry and me through the DVD. I find it hard to believe your diary is full. What do you do all day? This is important business – I can’t promise the lad won’t do something like this again, you know. Judging by his grandfather, the ‘repeat offence’ gene is quite strong in our family.

Yours, &c

HRH The Prince of Wales

The Spanish Ambassador

c/o The Spanish Embassy

London

England

14 October 2006

Dear Sir

‘Hola!’ It’s my habit, whenever I can find the time, to do some sort of ‘round robin’ of the United Kingdom’s friendly near-European neighbours to see how they are ‘getting along’ and if there is any role that I, as heir, might play in helping them move forward. I found myself with a free morning and after consulting my file, realised it was a while since I had written to your embassy – some fifteen years, in fact.

So, how are you getting along? Well, I trust. I have always taken a great interest in Spain, its people, its customs, its animals, its trees. Buildings, too – its buildings – marshlands?

Well, the telephone appears to be ringing so I must go and answer it. It has been a pleasure to correspond. A prompt reply would be greatly appreciated for my records.

Yours, er … yours

HRH The Prince of Wales

President Barack Obama

The White House

Washington

USA

1 January 2009

Dear Mr Barack

If that is the term? Dash these formalities! Officially, I’m ‘HRH The Prince of Wales’ but you can just call me ‘Sir’. Congratulations on your famous election victory. As a half-black man, you must feel half-proud for all black people everywhere, as well as all half-black people. We stayed up and watched the results come in as a family – certain of whom made certain remarks which they considered drily humorous concerning yourself, but I shan’t pass those on. After all, we are not all ‘modernists’.

I was especially taken with your catchphrase: ‘Yes, We Can!’ Rousing stuff! I was wondering if I might use it myself? Like you, I have a vision – that a wrecking ball be taken to the gruesome glass-and-metal monstrosities that disfigure both the North and South Banks of the River Thames and that they be replaced by thatched cottages to serve as commoners’ dwellings. When next waxing this topic at the podium, it’d be nice to be able to throw in the phrase, perhaps adapted a little, to rebuke the naysayers: ‘Yes, One Can!’ Can one, to lapse into the parlance of your (half) people, get a witness?

Soulfully, yours

HRH The Prince of Wales

His Holiness Benedict XVI

c/o The Vatican

Vatican City

Rome

Italy

10 October 2009

Your Holiness

I hope this correspondence finds you well. I extend this letter to you in a warm and ecumenical spirit, although I am most dismayed at the scandals currently enveloping the Catholic Church, what with child abuse and so forth. I know this has caused you great pain and I fully sympathise with you. Because, you see, I myself was abused as a child.

When I say ‘abused’, it was more in the nature of ragging, really: Gordonstoun. Chinese burns, being forced to run starkers apart from a face flannel from the changing rooms to the dorm after some tittering blighter made off with one’s clothes, an initiation ritual involving a jar of salad cream and a mop (which out of respect for Your Holiness I shan’t elaborate on further). All character building, or so I was told. Anyway, I do hope it’s of some comfort to know that although we are of different faiths, we are in a strange sense, ‘in the same boat’.

May our God be with us

HRH The Prince of Wales

PS I hesitate to forward any criticism of Your Holiness but whoever is advising you to smile for the cameras may be mistaken. Without at all meaning to do so, you have a way of ‘leering’, which is unfortunate in the present climate (one thinks of ‘puppies’ or ‘sweets’). I say this with immense respect.

The French Ambassador

c/o The French Embassy

Knightsbridge

London

England

12 March 2010

Monsieur

Bonjour!

Si vous êtes content, je voudrais ecrire ce lettre en Français – j’ai un peu de Français mais seulement un peu, vous savez. Pour pratiquer, je n’emploi pas un dictionaire. Pardonnez les erreurs!

Je pense que nos nations ont beaucoup en commone
– (‘common’?
Comment dit-on?
) Actually, on second thoughts, probably just as well for me to abandon this particular experiment – I might goof badly and create a diplomatic incident! There was talk of me becoming Ambassador to France, back in 1979; what they’d nowadays call ‘work experience’, I suppose. Lord Carrington, who was one of Mrs Thatcher’s men, described the idea as ‘crazy’ and I suppose he had a point. Clearly, I was cut out for bigger things and would probably have been by way of being ‘overqualified’ for the job, certainly in terms of eminence.

That said maybe there is merit in the suggestion. I was wondering, should an opening arise, if my youngest son Harry might be put up for French Ambassador? He’s the ginger one, in case you need a prompt. Granted there was that business a while back in which he dressed up in full Nazi regalia for some fancy-dress party and the press got wind of it and kicked off a stink. Some might say that disqualifies him for the job, especially with the French having spent most of World War II with the Nazi jackboot at their neck following the Maginot bungle and sensibilities could be ruffled by his appointment. But let’s look at this from the other side. For me, this is precisely why such a job would be good for the lad! It’d help teach him something of the nuances of international diplomacy, the delicacy of national feelings and give him a bit of history and geography. A few years as French Ambassador and I’d be willing to ‘bet’ the chances of him turning up to some function, clicking his heels as he’s announced at the door and goose-stepping in dressed as Josef Goebbels would be pretty much negligible.

Constructively, yours

HRH The Prince of Wales

The French Ambassador

c/o The French Embassy

Knightsbridge

London

England

12 March 2010

Monsieur

In answer to your letter, yes, I was perfectly serious,
absolument serieux
! Quelle question étrange, mon bon homme!

Yours, &c

HRH The Prince of Wales