It seems fitting that HRH Prince Charles will be spending his 65th birthday in Sri Lanka, poised to head the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting solo for the first time, standing in for The Queen, with his “darling wife” Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall at his side.
Fitting, because today marks the start of a new period for the British royal, one in which we’ll see him taking over more of the duties that will eventually all become his when he takes the throne as King some time in the not too distant future.
It’s also telling that for the past week Prince Charles has been in India, one of his personal favourites in the vast list of countries he has visited over the past six decades, on what has seemed like both a spiritual journey with the Royal Couple very pointedly embracing the world’s faiths, and an opportunity for the Prince to reinforce his passionate mantras on issue like the environment.
In the past few years Prince Charles seems to have stepped up a gear working at an incredible pace and with impressive vigour for those causes close to his heart. As The Weekly‘s royal correspondent I have been watching from the sidelines and feel that now more than ever we can see the sort of leader this Prince is going to be.
Prince Charles is a royal who leads by example, who desperately wants to make a difference and to make his mark and his stamping ground are issues that affect us all – ecology, health, sustainable building, dangerous feelings of despondency in young people.
Only this week Prince Charles evoked another great leader when he said in one of his many speeches in India “Mahatma Gandhi, whose wisdom and vision continue to have such a bearing on all our lives, and who has had a great influence on my own thinking, once said: ‘What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.’ How right he was.”
My own experience of Prince Charles from meeting him at length for our 80th birthday interview earlier this year in his Scottish home and on other occasions over the past 18 months is of a man who has noble intents but is also rather endearingly filled with humility at the privileged position he finds himself in.
He’s also a man to whom family is crucial and who now at 65 seems closer than ever to his sons and his new grandson Prince George who has given him fresh inspiration to work on his plans for a better future.
Happy 65th Prince Charles.
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