The Prince Charles Letters (3 page)

That was the Gordonstoun way and I trust it’s not the Eton way. I like what you say about compassionate Conservatism. I, too, dream of presiding over a kingdom in which one’s subjects do not suffer bullying, ear-tweaking, ragging or urination in lunchboxes. At a glance, I can see that had you gone to Gordonstoun, you would have been what we called a ‘roastee’, not a ‘roaster’.

Yours, in sympathy

HRH The Prince of Wales

David Cameron

10 Downing Street

London

England

12 May 2010

Dear Mr Cameron

It just came to me: Partington. That was his name, David Partington – no idea what became of him. Well, carry on, eh? Those essential public services won’t cut themselves!

Yours, etc.

HRH The Prince of Wales

David Cameron

10 Downing Street

London

England

13 October 2010

Dear Mr Cameron

Pootling through Central London in my official car, I was deeply conscious of how slow our progress was, which was the dickens of an annoyance as I was late for my appointment at the Federation For Corporate Concern’s annual conference. I was due to deliver a keynote speech entitled, ‘There You Are, My Man – The Importance of Giving a Little Back’.

As we sat in gridlock, I did, however, spot a remarkable sight – that of enterprising young men pulling around tourists in brightly painted rickshaws for a token fee. I felt like I’d been blessed with a vision of the future and I invite you, Mr Cameron, as a man of the future, to implement it. Suppose commuters formed a ‘rickshaw pool’ in which, say, one man pulled two of his colleagues to work, only for each of them to reciprocate over the coming days? The Cabinet could take a lead.

The next time I’m being driven through London it would be tremendous to have my chauffeur wind the window down, enabling me to see you cheerfully pulling Mr Clegg and Mr Osborne along to Parliament, with Mr Osborne returning the favour to you and Mr Clegg the next day, and Mr Clegg taking his turn the day after that. You could call yourselves ‘the jambusters’! Of course Mr Eric Pickles presents a problem but perhaps he could be declared exempt from the scheme on the grounds of circumference.

Practically, yours

HRH The Prince of Wales

David Cameron

10 Downing Street

London

England

10 November 2010

Dear Mr Cameron

Time was, you know, Cameron, when a politician wasn’t a politician unless he had the sort of beard a small bird could nest in! Sadly, those days are past. You yourself, it seems, are the ‘new model’. During our conversations at close quarters I have been fascinated to study your face. It’s as if you are made of silicone. Have you ever shaved? Do you have some bizarre skin condition? In which case I apologise for bringing the subject up.

How long do you think it would take you to grow a beard? My wife reckons about twelve months but I’m inclined to think anything between two and three years. This is not flippancy – I wouldn’t take up your valuable time with this issue were I not genuinely intrigued.

Yours, in anticipation

HRH The Prince of Wales

Tony Blair

Houses Of Parliament

London

England

3 July 2011

Dear Mr Blair

I know you’re no longer an ‘MP’ but I suppose they’ll be glad to forward your mail after all that you did for parliament.

I must say, I’m astonished to read what your sidekick Campbell has to say in his diaries about my excessive and interfering letter writing. He wasn’t confusing me with either Andrew or Edward, was he? Off the top of my head, I’m hard pressed to remember any letters I wrote to you at all. Yes, there was China, and fox hunting, oh yes, and the whole GM foods question, I grant you, and the hereditary peers business I now recall, and, ah yes, Europe, nuclear power, the role of the loom in the so-called ‘service economy’, the one about yoghurt, one written in error intended for the ‘hoofer’ Lionel Blair, one in which I sent you some cuttings of limp parsley acquired from one of our ghastly supermarket chains asking what was to be done, several demanding why your deputy, portly fellow, name escapes me, senior moment, my apologies … ah yes, Prescott! – why Prescott hadn’t yet replied to my letters and requesting you to give him a ‘nudge’ and perhaps no more than a couple of hundred others. Other than that, none at all, to my knowledge.

What irks me is that you never brought it up with me yourself. In our meetings, you were rather apt to regard me in that boggle-eyed way of yours, with that rictus expression clamped to your chops as if you had smiled too much as a child and your face had set that way. I’m sorry, that isn’t a facial affliction, is it? I made a similar ‘gaffe’ once with Gordon Brown and his eyeball.

Wounded, yours

HRH The Prince Of Wales

PS – I resent this insinuation of your fellow Campbell that I am somehow out of touch and elitist. I should say that I would never, never ask anyone to do anything that I, myself, would not ask my manservant to do.

The Beatles

Parlophone Records

London

England

13 April 1963

Dear Beatles

I don’t really like ‘pop’ music because even though it has a good rhythm, it seems a bit silly and repetitive, and just for girls who are into fashion. But The Beatles are something different. I don’t know what it is about you, but I find myself humming your songs and sometimes even snapping my fingers when I hear your tunes – they’re ‘catchy’, ‘man’!

I’ve decided I really don’t want to be a prince; I think I’d really rather be a Beatle. I wonder if any of you would care to do my job? I was thinking of you in particular, Ringo: you’re only the drummer, that’s the easiest instrument; I could manage that. And you get to sit down during the concert, which the others don’t! You could swap places with me, Ringo – you could do my job, I’m sure of it. I’m very grown-up and serious about this, intensely serious. Not like I was with Tommy Steele, this is serious. Tomorrow, I’m going to ask my mother and father if we can swap. Will you ask your mother and father too, Ringo? You’d be king one day – King Ringo the First. I want to meet girls.

Yours

(Soon to be ex?) HRH The Prince of Wales

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Amsterdam Hilton Hotel

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

13 April 1969

Dear Mr Lennon and Miss Ono

I hope you don’t consider this correspondence an intrusion, nor that you are required to get out of bed in order to fetch it, thus scuppering your whole ‘gimmick’. I expect you have people to do that sort of thing for you, anyway. Being idealists, I don’t suppose you believe in Princes and suchlike, but I trust you have nothing against Wales and so on that basis we can meet halfway.

This ‘Go to bed rather than make war’ idea of yours is jolly fine, I think in principle, but as a young man on the point of carrying out my family’s long tradition of military service, I don’t believe I can in my heart of hearts advocate loafing to that extent. Perhaps if you were to compromise – if you could adjust your message so that it was something like ‘Be sure to get a good, peaceful night’s sleep’ then I could cheerfully give it the Royal seal of endorsement. With the amount of rushing about in the modern world, ‘shut-eye’ is on the decline, I’m sure we might agree. Could we not work together on this?

Your humble servant

HRH The Prince of Wales

PS On a lighter note, when I heard The Beatles might be splitting up, my first reaction was ‘Oh, no!’ – think about it!

Johnny Rotten

Virgin Records

London

England

17 May 1977

Dear Mr Rotten

Senior palace officials advise me not to make contact with you in this way but I have done so nonetheless and so I hope I might appeal to what I believe to be the vestige of decency you have in you and keep this correspondence between ourselves. I think if the Royals are to modernise, we must not be ‘aloof’ but keep ‘channels of communication’ open between oneself and ‘street-fighting toughs’ like you.

I realise you’re an ‘angry young man’ – I get angry myself sometimes, so I know exactly how you feel – but I understand you plan to release your punk disc ‘God Save The Queen’ to coincide with my mother’s Jubilee celebrations. Regretfully, in a democracy I cannot ask you to suppress your free speech. Might I then suggest that instead of attacking my mother on this, her most special occasion, that I place myself in her stead? Write a punk song about me instead, if you really must get things off your chest. I can take the brickbats. It might run as follows:

God bless the Prince

Let’s make him into mince

He’s got stupid stick-out ears

Gets his kicks shooting deers.

If that last line doesn’t work, my brother Prince Andrew, whom I took into my confidence, suggests, ‘His friends are all queers’. I think he himself is going through a ‘punk rock’ phase – that is a revolting slander and it appalls me to think this is the sort of thing my brother obviously believes you might write and if that’s what it takes to ‘seal the deal’, I will fall on that particular sword but how could you be thought to think such a thing?

Yours, in secret

HRH The Prince of Wales

The Three Degrees

c/o Motown Records

Los Angeles

California

United States of America

15 November 1978

A bit of ‘guesswork’ on my part, sending this to the Tamla Motown address. It may well not be where you make your records at all, but I’m sure Diana Ross, if she discovers this letter the way she legendarily discovered Michael Jackson, will be kind enough to pass it on.

I must admit I hesitate to put pen to paper – to sully these sheets, as it were – but following your truly extraordinary performance at my 30th birthday party, I felt I had to convey to you the depths of feeling you stirred in me. I’m not a music ‘critic’ so I can’t put my finger on it – whether it’s the fact that there are three of you ladies, the way you seem to heat up a room with your presence, or those terrific rhythms which seem to affect one somewhere below the head and above the knees, you are a credit both to your gender and to the ‘soul’ community in general.

I just wish there was some way we could put our heads together on one of my pet projects: what are your views on the Preservation of the Royal Yacht, the National Fruit Collection, bio-degradable Wellington boots? Perhaps you might get involved in all three between you, one Degree per project. Take your pick, ladies!

Yours, in a sort of canine devotion

HRH The Prince of Wales

The Village People

New York

USA

6 May 1979

You may remember that I wrote to you before following the success of your hit disc, ‘YMCA’. I remember saying to you that while discotheque was, and still isn’t, my sort of thing, you clearly had a knack of combining exhortation with entertainment, which almost certainly accounted for your huge success among young people. I advised you, you’ll recall, to target your songwriting skills towards the Armed Services, who are always short of new recruits, and I was immensely gratified when you took up my suggestion with your ‘follow-up’ song, ‘In The Navy’, which was as much of a success as its predecessor.

I hope you don’t mind my scratching my chin a bit doubtfully, but if I might venture a criticism, it is that the accompanying promotional film may have given a misapprehension of ‘life at sea’ for the fresh cadet. For a start when piped aboard you are not greeted by men in hard hats, police caps or Red Indian headdresses. There is no unsupervised semaphore disco dancing on deck. Rather, one must first undergo early morning drill from a gunnery instructor, acquaint oneself with the rudiments of Morse code and learn how to navigate picket boats into pontoons. None of this features in your film and it is, I regret to say, the poorer for it. An opportunity missed, but we can move forward together and learn from our mistakes.

Yours, man to man

HRH The Prince of Wales

Stevie Wonder

c/o Motown Records

Los Angeles

California

18 August 1979

Dear Mr Wonder

How does it work when you get correspondence? Do your people translate it into Braille? (I’m afraid none of my people have Braille.) Or does someone read it out loud to you? This concerns me as there will be a temptation, this being a letter from me, for whoever reads it to do so in a ‘Charles voice’, which can end up sounding inadvertently comical.

Well, that can’t be helped. I was writing to congratulate you on your latest album,
Journey Through The Secret Life Of The Plants
. A lot of the so-called, self-styled ‘critics’ have scratched their heads at this remarkable ‘double gatefold album’ and even wondered aloud if you were under the influence of certain substances when you wrote it. However, you, like me, have vision (I say, I’m awfully sorry, that didn’t come out at all right but you know what I mean). I confidently predict
The Secret Life Of The Plants
will be remembered long after all your other works, such as
Songs In The Key Of Life
, have been forgotten. I thank you for this work – and, may I say, the plants thank you also.

Yours, in horticultural appreciation

HRH The Prince of Wales

Adam Ant

c/o CBS Records

London

England

17 September 1981

Dear Mr Ant

It’s been hard to avoid your song, ‘Prince Charming’, which currently sits at Number One in the hit parade. I regret to say that whenever my brothers Edward or Andrew see me in the corridor, they strike up with a low, jeering chant of ‘Prince Charlie, Prince Charlie’, based on the tune to your disc – I suppose they think it’s funny.

May I correct you, however, on one specific point? In your lyrics, you say, ‘Ridicule, ridicule is nothing to be scared of’. I can assure you, from my experiences at Gordonstoun, that it very much is. Any chance you could amend the offending words before next week’s edition of
Top of the Pops
?