Photo: Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty
It wasn’t quite smiles-all-round forPrince Charlesas he visited Wales on Wednesday.
When 8-month-old Lenny Williams (wearing an adorable shirt that read “Little Prince Charming”) was held up to meet him he couldn’t quite muster the wide grin that he had reserved for Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, minutes earlier.
“I’m trying to get a smile out of him,” Charles told mom Laura Williams, 40, who proudly held her son above the children from Christchurch Primary school in Swansea. “I told him he had a lovely smile for your wife!”
Charles, 70, didn’t have to worry — there were plenty more welcoming faces, flag waving children, and a brass band as he and Camilla, 71, were in Swansea for something of a joint celebration.
Prince Charles.Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty
While the Queen’s eldest son was being feted for his 50th anniversary since being invested as Prince of Wales, he and Camilla, visited to helped mark its 50th year as a city. Swansea was granted city status after Charles was invested as Prince of Wales in Caernarfon on July 1, 1969.
“It’s fantastic that he came back 50 years later. It was an amazing turning-point for Swansea being made a city,” says deputy headteacher of Christchurch primary, Michael Hunter.
Camilla joked to reporters that her husband was marking the 50th anniversary of his investiture as Prince of Wales “quietly.”
How would he be marking the milestone, she added, “Another anniversary I know — celebrating quietly.”
Prince Charles.Chris Jackson/Getty
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty
Adds royal naval reserve Captain Brian Thorne, 63, who as a 13 year old sung in a massed choir when Charles visited a chapel in Swansea 50 years ago: “It’s poignant that he’s here. He’s not justPrince Charles— he is the Prince of Wales and is regularly visiting. He’s no stranger to all parts of Wales.”
The visit comes as Charles and Camilla are spending their annual “Wales Week” criss-crossing the nation to visit local charities, organizations and communities with which he has been involved during the last five decades.
Chatting to the Brownies from the 2nd Skewen group, Camilla said she’d “enjoyed being in the Brownies” when she was a child, as she asked them about their badges.
In the crowd was Sheelagh Rew-Jones, 62, who recalled seeing the prince 50 years ago. “He came down with his mother [the Queen] in an open-topped car. I didn’t meet him that day but I did today! I waited for this moment for years. It’s a beautiful moment.”
The couple spoke with representatives from charities they have links with and community leaders, and local companies who had won Queen’s Awards, which help establish them further in international business.
Camilla had an animated chat with Uzo Iwobi from the Black Asian and Minority Ethnic hub in the city. There are 18 different nationalities represented in their group, she says. “She was saying there was amazing diversity in the city – that it was such a global city,” Iwobi adds.
Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.Arthur Edwards - WPA Pool/Getty
Flamboyant magician Craig Lewis, 50, caught Camilla’s eye. “What an impressive moustache,” she said, admiring how the ends had been twisted into a point. “She asked me how long it takes to do that everything morning. It is 30 seconds! She is a lovely woman. It’s wonderful that they are here — they’re my favorite royals.”
Inside the Patti Pavilion, which stands about 100 yards from the beach at Swansea bay, the couple toured some stalls – including one for Penderyn Welsh whisky — and did the honors of cutting the celebration cake. And then, rather than take a slice, Charles turned to the women to his left and called out: “You might as well enjoy the cake – and wash it down with the lovely whisky and gin.”
Earlier in their visit to Wales, the couple hosted a reception at their Welsh home, Llwynywermod, at Myddfai, in Carmarthenshire, on Tuesday evening. There, as well as performances from students from the Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama, the prince’s latest official harpist Alis Huws made her first performance. She is the sixth person to hold the post since Charles reinstated the post in 2000.
A spokesman at his office at Clarence House spokesperson said in a statement that since his investiture in 1969, Charles “has taken great pride and joy in supporting the many charities and organizations which do vital work in Wales for its communities and for the preservation and promotion of Welsh life and culture.”
source: people.com
