To celebrate the 80th birthday of The Australian Women’s Weekly, Prince Charles invited our deputy editor Juliet Rieden to his private Scottish estate for his first interview with the magazine in 40 years.
I first met HRH Prince Charles when I was writing a story about his wife The Duchess of Cornwall last year.
I was in London and the Duchess called her husband over to shake my hand at a reception at Westminster Abbey following a rather moving Sunday service in the Abbey honouring RAF war veterans and we chatted about the couple’s imminent trip to Australia.
The Prince couldn’t wait to introduce his wife to Australians and seemed genuinely excited.
We then crossed paths a few more times more at official functions at his London home Clarence House and again here in Australia.
Each time The Prince remembered me by name, was incredibly courteous, warm and well, very, very busy.
It seemed to me that there was a real sense of urgency in all the important projects he was involved in and I was intrigued to see him at work and with his wife and thought how great it would be to sit down and talk to him properly.
Of course such opportunities are incredibly rare — indeed the one and only time The Weekly had previously been afforded an interview was almost 40 years ago in 1974 and to date the Prince has only agreed to a handful of media interviews.
But knowing how passionate Prince Charles is about Australia I put in my own passionate request to interview the Heir to the Throne for The Weekly’s 80th celebratory issue.
To my delight he not only agreed, but suggested I come to Birkhall, his private home on the Balmoral Estate in Scotland to meet, interview and photograph him and then spend a further few days with him at work around the UK. I even scored a private tour of his famous gardens at Highgrove, his home in England’s south.
To get to Birkhall you first fly to Aberdeen and then drive for an hour or so along winding lanes through the stunning Cairngorms countryside.
This is a very special part of the world. The Prince has said many times that it is here he is able to truly relax, where the cares of public life fall from his shoulders.
He loves to walk in the hills around the estate and I was told to be prepared for a ramble.
The house, previously home to his grandmther, the Queen Mother, is not grand and palatial, but more of a home, surrounded by the Royal Deeside wilderness and the snowy caps of Lochnagar.
Meeting the Prince here felt really special, as if we were getting a window on his private world.
Read Juliet Rieden’s interview with Prince Charles in the October issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly on sale now.
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