She was then given a brief tour before being ushered inside the cool, atmospheric wine cellar surrounded by wooden barrels. The duchess sat down ahead of being served a selection of premium and the rarest Cretan wine, along with cheese and other delicacies.
‘Rob, won’t you join me in the wine-tasting?’ the duchess asked me with a warm smile. I didn’t need to be asked twice and happily joined in. They first served white, which, despite its pedigree, was a little sharp for my taste, but the Mandilari rosé of 2015 certainly hit the spot. The extensive portfolio consists of a range of monovarietal wines – Vidiano, Plyto, Mandilari, Assyrtiko, Vilana, Thrapsathiri, Kotsifali – some from single, ‘premium’ vineyard plots, as well as blends of indigenous with international varieties: Syrah, Cabernet, Merlot. All top-quality. The fruit precision, purity and supple texture was top-drawer, as was the final glass of red and local cheese.
It was a welcome break from covering the prince, whose relentless schedule without a break in the searing heat can take its toll on everyone except, it seems, the prince himself. When planning the schedule, the prince and duchess’s private office takes the stamina of the principals into consideration. The duchess often has a break, for food or simply a change of clothes, in her schedule, whereas the prince goes from one engagement to the next unabated.
He had clearly been excited by the prospect of this official visit to Greece. His senior communications officer, Constantine Innemee, a Greek national, had taken the lead on arranging the media opportunities on the visit. To the less adventurous linguist it may have seemed all Greek, but, given his father’s Greek origins, Charles made sure his pronunciation of the language was correct too, occasionally checking with his press man whether he had got it right, before making a speech.
In his keynote address of such a tour, Charles is never one to shirk a challenge – especially when Greek is in his ‘blood’. At the president’s dinner at the presidential mansion in Athens on 9 May 2018, Charles tackled his father’s native tongue and was greeted with rapturous applause for his efforts. In Greek, which he had been practising ahead of the trip to Athens and Crete, Charles said, ‘We want to thank you for your warm welcome and heartfelt hospitality.’ He went on, ‘Our countries lie at opposite ends of the continent that we share. Our languages resemble each other only a little; our climates, I need hardly say, even less so! Yet there is, and has long been, an essential bond between us and between our people.
‘In Britain, as across the Western World, the profound influence of Greece has, since ancient times, shaped the way we think, the way we build, the way we learn and the way we govern.’ Quoting poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, he went on, ‘We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece.’ And, speaking of his family ties, he added, ‘For my part, my own connections to Greece have particular meaning – after all, it is the land of my grandfather.’
He said, ‘We are both, of course, seafaring peoples; nations which have long looked beyond our borders for opportunity and discovery. We are both exostrefis [outward-facing] – facing outward, not inward; looking to the world around us not just for strength and prosperity, but to understand our place within it. We share a spirit of openness with which, through history, we have welcomed new ideas and new people.’ Time and again the ‘tides of history’ had brought us together, he said. He said both countries stood for ‘freedom, democracy and tolerance’.
He continued, ‘In the Second World War, Greece bravely endured such terrible suffering and privation, as so many of your own parents and grandparents will have known at first hand. My own grandmother, Princess Alice, remained in Athens during those dark years and did whatever she could to help some of those most in need.’ It was typical of the personal and political the prince always cleverly manages to weave into such important addresses. He concluded, ‘I thank you once again for your heartfelt and warm reception to your country, which is always so hospitable. I raise my glass to everyone’s health, and to the welfare and friendship of our two peoples. Long live Greece! Long live the United Kingdom!’ he said with gusto.
A few days later, now on a solo mission, Camilla, happy in the cool of the wine cellar, raised her glass and toasted the Greeks and the Cretans, saying, ‘I never had Greek wine before, but it is delicious. I will certainly have it again.’ The small group raised their glasses, too. Her role is not always front-of-house like that of Charles, but, in her own quiet way, she is just as effective.
Afterwards, outside, she happily posed for photographs, relaxed and amiable. Indeed, the wine stood her in good stead, for in half an hour she would be linking arms and performing traditional Greek dancing with her husband and villagers after touring crafts and produce stalls in Archanes. It was a perfect end to what had been another hectic two-country tour of France and Greece.
On board the RAF Voyager, the duchess came to the back of the plane to chat to the handful of media, including me, who were left on the trip, some having returned home early from France ahead of the royal wedding. She smiled as she handed me a box of chocolates, one of the many presents she had been given.
‘You might like to share these around,’ she said. It was typical of a thoughtfulness that has made her a favourite with the travelling press. It seems strange that people still judge her so harshly. Yes, she was at the centre of the break-up of Charles and Diana’s marriage, but people don’t seem to appreciate that the marriage was so dysfunctional it would have ended anyway. They seem, too, to ignore Diana’s own adulterous affairs and focus only on Charles and Camilla, believing the perverse narrative that Diana alone was the wronged party in that situation.
Camilla seemed relieved to have completed another royal tour and supported her husband on his travels, which is no mean feat. She came to this job late in life and, make no mistake, their tours are gruelling affairs for all involved: hundreds of engagements need to be carried out, thousands of people met, all the time your own duty in front of the press being judged by the way you look and perform. The duchess is also a nervous flyer and finds long-haul visits particularly testing. When flying with the military all the announcements made by the cabin crew are not played in the section of the plane she is in with the prince. It apparently adds to her anxiety.
The duchess has, after all, come to all this VIP international diplomacy late in life. The prince is different. Military-trained, he had been doing it all his life. He is like a machine. He never eats lunch whilst carrying out royal engagements, partly so he can pack as much into the day as possible. He starts his day with a bowl of seed with a tiny amount of yoghurt to mix in. If anyone is asked for a breakfast meeting they are reminded, politely, not to order any. He may stop for a slice of fruit cake or a crumpet, just the one, and tea. Dinner, however, he never misses, and eats and drinks well, often with a strong mixed martini or two beforehand.
Charles will also have had enough water to keep him hydrated during the day, but not so much that he will need frequent loo stops. Years of experience have taught him exactly how to hydrate his body to just the right degree. Some of his staff, who do not necessarily share his lunch-less habits, carry their own food to keep them going during the day or, now wise to this, make sure they eat a big breakfast and snack on the road when the opportunity arises, such as on a visit to a vineyard or market stalls. That said, his staff and those who work in his slipstream say he is very generous. ‘He always remembers Napoleon Bonaparte’s old saying that an army marches on its stomach,’ said one former member of his kitchen staff. ‘To be effective, an army relies on good and plentiful food. He would always make sure his staff were well fed and watered, even if he stuck to a pretty rigid diet.’
Camilla is a dedicated and dutiful wife and travel companion for the prince. She has no desire to be the star of these well-planned roadshows. She is the support act as he delivers his powerful addresses and soft-power diplomacy. He is more relaxed when she is around and those lengthy state dinners must seem less tiresome with his wife
at his side. They share a similar sense of humour; it connects them. She will also actively do her best to make a photo opportunity work for the travelling photographers, who are all supremely loyal to her for it.
She has the knack of reading media situations well, particularly photo opportunities such as in Australia on the Gold Coast beach as the couple visited the Commonwealth Games in April 2018. ‘Don’t go in, darling,’ warned Charles in vain as the duchess slipped off her shoes, showing off her rose-pink-painted toenails, and dipped her toes into the gently lapping waves at Broadbeach. Camilla instructed her assistant to hold her wedge shoes as she enjoyed her time in the waves. She knew it would make a good newspaper photograph and a headline, even a small one, and it did.
Just ahead of the long-haul visit to Australia, which the duchess had originally decided not to attend, the issue was fudged. Ahead of the important Commonwealth summit, which would see the heads of government grant the Queen’s wish that Charles would be the organisation’s next head, it just looked wrong. Eventually, after her husband arranged for them to arrive privately and enjoy a few days of downtime, they stayed privately with Sir Michael Hintze at Deltroit Station near Tumblong, New South Wales, ahead of the official tour of Australia.
Charles, a proud supporter of the Commonwealth for decades, is dedicated to maintaining the Royal Family’s strong connections with the organisation through official visits, military links and charitable activities. It was his sixteenth visit to the realm of Australia and he has (so far, at the time of writing) visited forty-four of fifty-three Commonwealth countries, many of them on several occasions.
The image of the future King of Australia being welcomed by Queensland Governor Paul de Jersey and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk with the same level of ceremony as if it were the monarch herself – including a twenty-one-gun salute and an inspection of the Royal Guard of Honour from the Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force – was important and not lost on Charles and his aides. Her aides persuaded Camilla of the importance of her going and, at a pretour press conference, her private secretary Amanda McManus said the duchess would just have to ‘get on with it’.
It didn’t start well for the duchess. Perhaps the local media wanted to make mischief about the leak that she hadn’t been that keen to go. The Commonwealth Games’ opening ceremony at the Carrara Stadium featured spectacular celebrations of the laid-back beach lifestyle and Australian indigenous culture. Prince Charles officially opened the games on behalf of his mother following the celebrations, reading her message to the enthusiastic crowds, and the Parade of Nations drew thunderous applause, particularly when Australia emerged onto the track. But onlookers took to social media unfairly to criticise the duchess for looking ‘bored’ and ‘miserable’ and ‘uninterested’ as she watched on from the VIP box.
Everywhere the couple went, however, they got a warm reception and, although a largely antimonarchy press tried to stir up trouble about her leaving early ahead of her husband, it didn’t detract from what had been one of Charles’s best-received visits in years. The crowds on this visit – which took him from Brisbane and the Gold Coast onto the Great Barrier Reef and up north to Cairns, Gove and Darwin, the farthest north he had been in Australia as well as the Pacific islands of Vanuatu – were enthusiastic, very large and welcoming. Camilla, too, proved popular for the short time she was there. The media later seemed to warm to her and liked her attitude, as they did when Charles, for once, took off his tie to watch the Commonwealth Games basketball in Cairns.
Before Charles set foot in Australia, former prime minister Paul Keating ambushed the visit by telling the press that the prince ‘would be happy’ if the country became a republic. Keating, an old political campaigner with his own agenda, was of course twisting the facts to suit his own agenda. It was hardly likely the constitutional heir to the throne would say anything unconstitutional. Charles’s position on the matter, like that of the Queen, has always been consistent. The palace line has always been that it will be for the Australian people to decide, as both Charles and the Queen have made clear in public speeches.
The prince has always been passionate about Australia and its people. Before leaving he declared, ‘I love Australia and Australians and I love coming here. I was really touched by the welcome from the crowds both here and in Vanuatu.’ The prospect of his taking over as monarch delivered only a minor boost for the republican movement. If Charles ascends to the throne, 55 per cent of Australians said they would support a republic. A hard-core 35 per cent would want him as king with 10 per cent uncommitted. He used the visit to strengthen his charitable associations, donating thousands of pounds of his own cash to buy several defibrillators for use by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. He is patron of an association in the UK that raises cash for this vital service.
He cares deeply about the indigenous people, too, and their traditions and customs. He believes allowing them to die out – and along with them their profound knowledge learned over many centuries – would be an act of partial self-destruction on the part of humanity. On this visit he made a special visit to the ‘farthest north he has ever been’ to meet aboriginal clans. Wherever he is in the world, the preservation of remote tribes and peoples is always on his agenda, and has been for some time.
As far back as 1988, he was urging people of the importance of preserving such culture. ‘It would seem to me that there is still a prejudiced misconception in certain circles that people concerned with the environment, and what happens to this Earth, are bearded, be-sandalled, shaven-headed mystics who retreat every now and then to the Hebrides or the Kalahari Desert to examine their navels and commune with the natives,’ he said in a speech at European Year of the Environment Eye-catcher Awards.
And when he’d met a tribe in Papua New Guinea in 1966 singing the national anthem, he was moved to tears. ‘It was the most moving, touching thing I have ever experienced, I think, to see these people, miles from Britain, singing the national anthem. And the tears practically rolled down my cheeks.’
For Charles, preservation of such cultures is vital on so many levels. His concern from the very start was that Western culture was accelerating away from values and perspective that had up until then been embedded in its traditional roots. ‘The industrialisation of life was becoming comprehensive and nature had become secularised. I could see very clearly we were growing numb to the sacred presence that all traditional societies feel very deeply,’ he writes in Harmony.
On his last visit to Australia in April 2018, I flew in a military helicopter behind him as we ventured deep into the Australian Daintree Rainforest near Mossman Gorge, thirty minutes by helicopter from Cairns. First he took part in a traditional smoking ceremony, said to help ward off evil spirits. He did so with sombre respect. I watched at close quarters as Charles waved an aboriginal hunting boomerang for the cameras. But this was not just for show. He was there for a reason: to show the world what we must preserve.
‘I suppose this one doesn’t come back?’ he said. Aboriginal elder Roy Gibson, a quietly spoken, dignified man, said, ‘No it just hits the animal on the neck.’ He was also shown a hundred-year-old wooden sword used in previous fights between indigenous communities. He was there to meet an indigenous people, to discover the traditions of its 50,000-year-old history. He marvelled at how the Kuku Yalanji aboriginals made use of the forest as a rich resource and was awestruck when he was shown how leaves from a certain tree could provide relief for mosquito bites.
The following day the prince received a blessing as he met aboriginal leaders in a traditional welcome ceremony in Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory. And he was given a spiritual blessing by the world didgeridoo master in a yidaki healing ceremony during a tour of the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre in Gove, which showcased the work of the area’s indigenous people. The didgeridoo was blown close to his chest during the thirty-second blessing, after which Charles smiled and said, ‘I feel better already!’
Charles’s role in enlightening the world and people who are ignorant of traditional and indigenous methods is paramount. He has expended vast energy helping to save what remains of those traditional approaches. ‘I knew they would be needed for a rainy day,’ he says. His big hope is finding a path to reintegrate traditional wisdom with the here and now.
Attitudes to the monarchy in Australia are, on the whole, becoming more considered. After all, the real power still lies with an elected government and a prime minister and his or her cabinet. Even former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, an ex-chairman of the Australian Republican Movement, declared himself an ‘Elizabethan’, saying there was no urgency for a referendum while the Queen reigns. In 1999, the same Mr Turnbull declared that the monarchist prime minister of the time, John Howard, ‘broke this nation’s heart’ by sticking with the Windsors during a referendum on whether to keep the monarchy. As we saw earlier, Scott Morrison took over as Australian PM in August 2018, after Mr Turnbull was ousted by party rivals in a leadership contest.
Poll after poll, since the marriage of William to Kate and the arrival of their photogenic progeny, have reinforced a near-two-decade nadir in republican sentiment in Australia. It remains to be seen if Charles, as Australia’s king-in-waiting, can cultivate this country’s sentiment in a way that the younger royals seemed to have done. But his passion for Australia is genuine, as is his determination to serve. One question I am always asked when on tours of the Commonwealth is the ‘Camilla question’: will she be Charles’s queen when he is king? Their story shows that love can conquer all.
Charles at Seventy Page 16
