An Interesting Fact About The King

(the monarch formerly known as Prince)

Say what you like about the King, he looks really happy in this photo.

Intro

It seems that King Charles is a big Bob Marley fan.

No catching him out if you were apply the acid test for those millenials who wear Nirvana and Ramones T-shirts and ask him to name three songs, either.¹ The man owns 22 of Bob’s albums. He’s definitely a fanboy.

I looked up Bob Marley’s discography. Start with the thirteen studio albums he made, from The Wailing Wailers in 1965 to the posthumous Uprising from 1983, add seven live albums, chuck in a Greatest Hits and a couple of remix albums and you’re there.

So assuming his collection is not simply 22 copies of Legend given as presents from countries we may have offended in the past,² fair play to the King then.

That isn’t the Interesting Fact though, although it IS quite interesting and is definitely a fact.

We go back a long way, me and Charlie. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t there in the papers or on the telly, always in the public eye, part of the Royal Family, such a ubiquitous organisation, affecting every part of our lives for hundreds of years, that it is impossible to imagine them not being there.

Now I don’t remember the Moon Landing in July 1969, but I do remember watching Charles’ Investiture as Prince Of Wales at Caernarfon Castle in North Wales earlier that month.

I’d like to say I was impressed by the pomp and ceremony, or failing that (since I didn’t understand the ceremony), just the pomp, but it was in black and white so a lot of the pomp passed me by too.

The word “investiture” is what I remember. I’d never heard it before and it intrigued me.

My dad was always very insistent that I wore a vest. Maybe the Queen was the same. Did it mean he had a vest on underneath that uniform? Even in July.

“It’ll mop up the sweat” he used to say. Dear old dad, I do miss him. I get all my common sense from him.

“I’m freezing, mum.” “I told you you’d need a vest”.

I was seven years old and had to wear a vest. Charles was twenty years old, so presumably he didn’t. Also, he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge.³

When he graduated he was the first member of the Royal Family to do so, but at the time of the Investiture he was still an undergraduate.

During his time at Cambridge he attended a political meeting which featured a speech given by a young left-wing firebrand.

So impressed was our future monarch that he immediately phoned his handler, one of “The Firm”, the Mafioso-style organisation who ran, and still run, the British monarchy and told him he was intending to join the Labour Party.

In a perfect world the young firebrand would have turned out to be the future Labour leader (and nearly Prime Minister) Neil Kinnock who caused the stirrings of socialism in our future King’s breast, but unfortunately this was not the case. Kinnock went to Cardiff University and was in any case a few years older than Charles.

The handler was a little perturbed. Words were exchanged. Charles did not in fact join the Labour Party, although his words and deeds over the next few decades definitely indicated a willingness to speak out on Green issues despite the ridicule he often received, long before they became a mainstream concern.⁴

That story has always endeared Charles to me. Also, the idea of a socialist King tickles me.

And yes, I know some of the stuff he’s been a party to since then has sometimes been sub-optimal, but I do feel a bit sorry for him, and the whole family trapped in an extremely luxurious prison.

There he was, unable to be a normal student and do whatever and whoever he wanted, because he was trained to be King from birth, although I bet he never thought he’d have to wait over 50 years to ascend the throne and start ruling.⁵

It feels strange for an anti-monarchist to say this but I think he’s not doing a terrible job just now. Making all the right diplomatic moves on international relations.

If we’ve got to have a hereditary monarch, he could be a lot worse. I guess the Firm is pretty good at its job. After all, we still have a monarchy.

Other posts you may enjoy:

An Interesting Fact About Conan The Barbarian

Music Post - Five Great 80s artists still making worthwhile records

Newsletter - Excerpts From A Cluttered Mind #6

Books post - There's Something About Susans (Narnia and Garner)

Sunday Quickie - Supernatural Season Seven

Thank you. Come Again.

1. I apologise for my generation. We have such a dreadful gatekeeper mentality, even though most of us don’t understand the word’s meaning in this context.

2. That is to say, all of them.

3. Surely they were missing a trick by not sending him to King’s?

4. I mean, the Green Party was still called the Ecology Party in those days, as if anybody would vote for that.

5. Not that the British monarch has any actual power. Officially, that is. I’ve said too much already.