Original subtitles

When did you first realise

that you were not just an ordinary chap?

I do have very happy memories of childhood.

I remember, when I was young, my parents both enjoyed filming things.

I remember we used to have lots of laughs.

I could sometimes make her laugh, anyway, which was always very jolly.

But my mama, inevitably, you know, was so busy

having to do all the tours abroad.

I remember, when I was quite young,

trying to talk on the telephone when she was miles away.

And then I think also spending a lot of time

with my grandmother at Royal Lodge.

There was a marvellous garden there, and I used to,

as a child, potter about in the garden there,

in the kitchen garden, and so on.

I learned so much from her of immense value in my life.

When my mama succeeded and became Queen,

and my grandfather died so young,

I ended up becoming heir to the throne, aged four.

It must have been a terrible shock in many ways.

You can imagine, at that age,

when, presumably, she'd hoped that she'd have a chance

to do other things and, you know, bring up her family.

I can just remember the actual coronation.

I remember my mama coming up

where we were being bathed as children, wearing the crown.

It's incredibly heavy.

That's why my mama had to practise so much wearing it.

As a child of about four or five, one tends to remember, you know,

silly things like being dressed up in a special suit of clothes.

And then, the barber coming in and cutting one's hair much too short.

Particularly, I've never forgotten my grandmother,

she used to say things like,

"You know, darling, you must try and remember this."

Long live the Queen! Long live the Queen! Long live the Queen!

When did you first realise

that you were not just an ordinary chap?

It's something that dawns on you in the most ghastly, inexorable way

that people are interested in one. And, slowly, you get the idea

that you have a certain duty and responsibility.

How much influence has your father had on you?

Is he as tough a disciplinarian inside the palace

as he appears to be outside, on occasion?

He was a strong character.

He didn't suffer fools gladly.

So, if you said anything that was in any way ambiguous,

he'd say, "Oh, make up your mind!"

But he could be enormously encouraging

and he was very good at showing you how to do things.

My father always went through the process of discussing

where he thought, you know, I should go, which schools and all that.

The trouble is, when you're young,

you don't know what these places are like!

Wasn't particularly easy.

Good for the soul, good for the character, probably.

But you either had to literally sink or swim.

I suppose people think that because of who you are,

therefore, they wouldn't dare fail you in anything.

But it's not the case, because I failed my maths exam three times.

I finally got it on the fourth attempt

and I can tell you that that was no joke.

That nearly finished me completely.

When I was in Australia at school, that was much, much tougher.

I mean, I have the scars on my back to prove it.

But at the end of it all, having done it,

you really appreciated the value of the exercise.

The idea behind it is to challenge the person

so that they find something within themselves

that they didn't realise existed.

And this can have an electrifying effect on somebody.

I know it had an effect on me.

Having gone to Australia,

I felt I could actually go and talk to somebody

without them talking to me first.

But it took quite a lot to go and do it, but the moment I did it,

ever since then, I've never looked back.

Your grandfather, King George VI, once said,

"We're not so much a family, we're more a firm."

Do you feel a member of a firm?

I like to think of us more as a family, rather than a firm.

I tend to think of my family as very special people.

It's too hot! I've set something alight!

Charles!

Come on!

in that sense,

I'm only beginning to see my parents

and the rest of my family as other people, do you know what I mean?

That you look upon them as having their own different characteristics.

It's a great help to have a lot of people all doing

the same thing like that,

because you can go and talk to them about it.

You know, your own experiences

and the amusing things that have happened.

And you can learn a lot from each other.

Yes, it's very good. Yes, I've seen them.

We enjoy them, yes.

Charles? Charles...

Yes, well, how are you?

So happy to see you.

I was just saying to Her Majesty, I've seen you on television.

I think that's mutual.

I've seen you sometimes. That's right.

Yes, how do you do?

I don't think you've seen me on television.

thing you've done - you've learned to fly.

The day I went on my solo,

the instructor taxied to the end of the runway

and he suddenly climbed out and said, "You're on your own, mate."

So, there I was and I only had time

to have a few butterflies in my tummy.

And then, I taxied off and took off.

And the moment I was in the air, it was absolutely marvellous.

And, fortunately, I landed first time.

That was the only worrying thing,

because I had visions of myself going round and round and round

until, eventually, the fuel ran out.

But all was well.

When you came to Wales, of course,

there was quite a lot of strong anti-English nationalist feeling.

Were you at all apprehensive?

When I went to Aberystwyth for a term,

there was a lot of tension.

I promise you, walking into the dining hall

in the hall of residence is not easy.

I don't blame people demonstrating like that.

And you can't really expect people to be overzealous about the fact

of having a so-called English prince.

Although the day was rather damp and grey, it was most exciting.

I wasn't nearly as nervous as I thought.

The music was superb and the colour was marvellous.

# God bless the Prince of Wales! #

To kneel in front of my mama to take the oath

and then to have this coronet,

which was of a slightly revolutionary design,

plonked onto my head.

Our most dear son, Charles Philip Arthur George,

Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,

Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...

My mama busy dressing me

rather like she did when I was small!

With the same expression on her face.

..and the Great Steward of Scotland, Prince of Wales.

And then, you have to swear fealty.

I, Charles, Prince of Wales,

do become your liegeman of life and limb, and of earthly worship...

But it was a very proud and moving

and rather humbling moment, I thought.

I get easily moved by those sorts of occasions.

But then, I've never forgotten afterwards,

because I went on for three days and did a tour of Wales.

I mean, masses of people all the way for three days.

I've never forgotten it.

I think it's vital that those of us who find ourselves

in this extraordinary position

understand something of what our Armed Forces are expected to do

and it's much easier, then, to look them in the eye.

When I was serving in the Navy, I wanted to,

but it was encouraged anyway.

I'm not somebody endowed with a great deal of overconfidence.

I always believe if you're overconfident,

you can lead yourself into all sorts of awkward situations.

Certainly, when I had my ship,

I always doubted I was going to bring it alongside.

And it was always a great pleasure when I did without a disaster!

I like flying alone.

It's more stimulating.

And...

..there's that superb mixture between fear

and supreme enjoyment, which comes over me.

That marvellous panic where you don't really know

quite where you are and you've got to sort it out for yourself.

I never... Although I can't, obviously, forget who I am,

I never believe for one minute

that I should use who I was to get my way

or to order anybody to do anything because I'm who I am.

Drop it down for somebody else to pick up...

I believe that the only way you can do anything

is through any kind of respect that people may have for you as a person.

The only problem is, of course, when I put an Army uniform on,

I don't think I'm really going to look quite right with a beard.

Be an interesting court martial, though, wouldn't it?!

How did you define the role of Prince of Wales?

I didn't. I made it up as I went along.

I don't believe in having a totally honorary position.

I'm afraid I leap in with both feet.

I was always brought up, you know, to worry about everybody else.

I think that that is the basis of one's job.

You know, to serve other people.

If you feel that you can do something,

then you can be of service.

I think it would be criminally negligent of me, you know,

to go round this country

and not actually want to try and do something about what I find there.

Charlie! Don't forget us, darling!

I remember thinking,

"I'm sure there's something I can do to help here."

It was all taking so long, you know, for anything else to spring up,

so I just felt whatever we could do in a small way

would be better than nothing.

Everybody has some sort of talent, I think,

so often, is underutilised and underexpressed and undervalued,

that, given a chance, um,

they will develop if you take a chance with them.

Did they make you go down potholes and things like that?

Unfortunately. Rather you than me!

They're all coming.

I kept saying, "I want to be able to take risks,"

so that, if it didn't work, it didn't work.

But it was worth trying with the most difficult ones,

the ones you find are hardest to reach in society.

"From the age of ten, I've been in trouble with the law.

"I was put into the secure unit.

"It was a college of crime.

"I learned how to break into houses better.

"I learned how to steal cars better.

"I first heard about the Trust when I was in prison.

"It was a chance for me to get the fresh start I had been looking for.

"My life is now about helping people rather than hurting people."

Oh, it is rather wonderful, that, isn't it?

And so, I'm going to write back to him.

My father,

I listened to him a lot, or talked to him a lot

about his efforts, you know, with the World Wildlife Fund and...

..we did talk quite a lot about those sorts of things

and what was happening in the world

and the increasing threats to wildlife

all around the world and their habitats.

And I suspect I was probably quite influenced by that.

But I was interested anyway.

I remember that period of the 1960s only too well.

And I felt deeply disturbed by what seemed to have become

a dangerously short-sighted approach.

We are faced, at the moment, with the horrifying effects

of pollution in all its cancerous forms.

When you think that each person

produces roughly two pounds of rubbish per day -

believe the Americans produce more per head -

and there are 55 million of us on this island

using non-returnable bottles and indestructible plastic containers,

it is not difficult to imagine the mountains of refuse

that you shall have to deal with somehow.

In those early years, I was described as old-fashioned,

out of touch and anti-science,

a dreamer in a modern world that clearly thought itself

too sophisticated for obsolete ideas and techniques.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

I could see very clearly that we were growing numb

to the sacred presence that all traditional societies

still feel very deeply.

Like the children who followed the Pied Piper,

we failed to notice how far we were being taken from our rightful home.

What spurred me on was an essential fact of life,

an undeniable law,

that if we ignore Nature,

everything starts to unravel.

The necessary action hasn't been taken, has it? That's the problem.

And I cannot believe that people

can simply pay no attention to science.

They accept it in every other aspect of modern existence,

the evidence, but apparently, NOT for climate change.

We need to think about what kind of world we're handing on

to our successors,

particularly, grandchildren...

..so we don't ruin it for them.

Do you have any thoughts about the lady

that a Prince of Wales should marry?

Yes.

Well, I suppose, um...

You see, it's always difficult, because people like you perhaps

would expect quite a lot from somebody like that,

and it's got to be somebody pretty special.

Yes.

When you have children of your own, you only then discover

just what fun they can be, um...

..and how important they are.

William is a splendid little character and very good-natured.

He's very outgoing, which is encouraging,

which will be a great help to him, I think, later on.

His brother Harry is, I think, absolutely adorable.

And he is extraordinarily good

and sleeps marvellously and eats very well.

Let him have a look through there.

Have a look through there.

You can see all those people on the other side, look.

Look through there, you see?

You see the thing on the side of this?

Can you see their faces?

There's people in there.

Look at them.

Trapped!

I'm not very good at being a performing monkey.

I think that I'm quite a sort of...private person.

It is extraordinary how now you feel

that wherever you are,

there's somebody hiding behind something somewhere.

I always think there's a camera now. Always.

They've written the agenda, nine times out of ten,

before you go anywhere,

including the script for a soap opera that they want to continue.

I don't think many other people have to go through

this constant attention.

Not just me, but others, you know, when their marriages break down.

Obviously, I'd much rather it hadn't happened

and I'm sure...

wife felt the same.

The trouble now is that, of course,

our children are getting to the age where they read newspapers

and it's very upsetting.

I've learnt, over the years, you know, to try and ignore it

by just not reading most of them.

Otherwise, you go bananas!

Um, but...

..with the children,

what can you do if they read it?

You can't stop it. You can't stop them seeing this sort of thing.

It's just very important to develop

within as private an atmosphere as possible.

Given the fact that there's so many other things

in other parts of the world, and the Commonwealth and everything else,

trying to get round everything, as you can imagine,

is always a bit of a challenge.

I've been, I suppose, sort of born and brought up in

and surrounded by all this.

So, in a funny way, it almost becomes like second nature.

Being an incurable romantic,

I look upon the Commonwealth as an ideal,

as representing principles which, if you're not careful, disappear.

The whole idea of monarchy,

certainly as far as the Commonwealth is concerned, is a family,

and that, somehow, everybody belongs.

Ladies and gentlemen, His Royal Highness, The Prince Of Wales.

So, do you really enjoy walking along

the row of the crowd and shaking hands?

It doesn't seem possible that anyone could enjoy that.

Oh, why not?

When you get used to it,

you meet some frightfully amusing people.

Perhaps you'll pick up somebody here!

I try as hard as I can, by talking to as many people as possible.

The great advantage of my position

is that I can go around and talk to anybody about anything.

It is important to be honest and genuine

and people will always see that.

They will always see through you if you're not.

Oh, thank you, Prince Charles! Thank you, Prince Charles!

Ohhh!

They see him as a very serious person - which he is.

But I would like a lot of people to see the lighter side of him.

# Oh, the cokey-cokey

# Knees bend, arms stretch, ra-ra-ra

# You put your left leg in You put your left leg out... #

It's very important to have, as it were,

another world to go through a door into.

Otherwise, I promise you, it's very easy to go mad.

When I first came here, after 11 years of not skiing,

I had the most dreadful falls and crashes,

and landed on rocks and things...

But you learn that way. The only way to learn is to take the falls.

I'm one of these hopeless characters

who likes trying all sorts of things because it appeals to me

and I'm one of these people who doesn't like

sitting and watching something else go on.

I don't like going to the races

and watching horses thundering up and down,

because I'd rather be riding a horse myself.

..An attack into the next one.

Prince Charles goes back in defence.

I like to see if I can challenge myself

to do something which is potentially hazardous,

just to see whether, mentally,

and I can accept that challenge and carry it out.

Bloody cold! Can I give you that?

What? What does that do?

Well, I tell you, you put the air in here, you see, and if you now do...

I always have the sense, though,

that if you were not in this public position,

you'd like to be an actor.

I love imitating and mimicking.

Relax.

I enjoy making people laugh if I can.

And in a strange way, so much of what one does requires, I find,

acting ability in one way or another.

And it's extremely useful if you enjoy it.

So, I start when the green light goes on, do I?

Music plays a very important part in my life.

For me, it's a vital part of surviving the daily round.

I started on the trumpet at school at Gordonstoun,

and I played that quite a bit.

I remember we had, in those days in the early '60s,

these marvellous music teachers

who had escaped the Holocaust in Germany.

And one of them stopped, I remember, at one point and said,

"Those trumpets!" she said, "Stop those trumpets!"

Anyway, I thought, well, the time had come to try something else.

Hear this?

That's right.

Ohhh...!

Do you know what Strings.

And this, inside, the way it's shaped, gives it the sound,

which goes...

It's got quite a good tone. You see?

Oh!

I Was Glad by Hubert Parry

# We will go

# We will go

# Into the house of the Lord

# Our feet shall stand in thy gates

# Our feet shall stand in thy gates

# Our feet shall stand... #

We do not think music. We resonate with it and feel it.

It somehow harmonises with our own human nature

so that we feel something is meant by it.

It's fantastic, I think.

And, of course, with a big choir,

it must be even more remarkable, I would have thought.

Very interesting, you see...

It's those ones that make the whole difference, I think, those pipes!

I remember, as a child, that my grandmother used to take me

to all sorts of performances.

And also, all those marvellous memories of being read to

as a child by my father.

"Hiawatha.

"Of all beasts he learned the language,

"learned their names and all their secrets.

"How the beavers built their lodges.

"Where the squirrels hid their acorns."

They're so funny, these creatures, they really do make me laugh.

"..Talked to them whene'er he met them.

"Called them 'Hiawatha's brothers'."

I just always have loved the countryside.

And I love walking in it anyway.

I find that, funnily enough,

walking is a terribly important thing for me.

You know, rather like some people need a cigarette, I need a walk!

And, to me - it may sound silly to say,

but it's true, in my sense, anyway -

every tree,

stone and burn and...

..and bit of heather...

..actually means a great deal to me. I associate with them.

Some people mellow as they grow older,

I've noticed you seem to have got more passionate.

Well, yes, I am.

I mind so much about the future,

what we're going to leave to our children and grandchildren.

That's what really gets me going.

He's pretty impatient,

as I think everybody who works for him will tell you,

but that's how he gets things done.

She's the best listener in the world.

She does have a wonderful way with people, you see?

That's the special thing.

I'd love to tell him to pace himself,

but I'm afraid that's not going to happen.

I believe very strongly that the whole business of monarchy

depends on continuity.

I think the older you get,

the more impact the sovereign can make on affairs.

To that extent, I believe very strongly

that one should continue until the end of one's life.

And I see no reason why the Queen should ever...retire, if you like.

Queen Elizabeth's was a life well lived,

a promise with destiny kept,

and she is mourned most deeply in her passing.

To my darling mama...

..as you begin your last great journey

to join my dear late papa,

I want simply to say this...

Thank you.

How many do you think there are? One...

One, two, three, four. Four! Well done.

What sort of advice will the father

be passing on to the son from all you've learned?

I hope that, rather like a farmer's son

following his father around the farm and picking things up,

that I would hope that he would do the same, in a sense.

Are you coming with me? Agh!

Half the battle, isn't it, is how to adapt...

..without losing that element of continuity?

# God save our gracious King! Long live... #

I, too, now, solemnly pledge myself,

throughout the remaining time God grants me,

to uphold the constitutional principles

at the heart of our nation.

I shall endeavour to serve you with loyalty, respect and love,

as I have throughout my life.

Your Royal Highness, we've now come really full circle.

You're now within days of this investiture of yours.

What will that day mean to you personally?

I think it'll probably mean quite a lot.

I do enjoy ceremonies

and I think that the British people do them so very well.

Three cheers for His Majesty the King!

Hip-hip!

Hooray!

Hip-hip!

Hooray!

Hip-hip!

Hooray!

One could be so cynical about this sort of thing and think,

"Oh, it's only a ceremony." And, you know,

"Perhaps it's for television." And, you know, "It's just a show!"

But I like to think it's something a little bit more than that.

I think it'll be a marvellous day, probably.

As long as the weather stays fine.