by David Stubbs
HRH The Prince of Wales
Jeremy Paxman
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
26 June 2000
Well, Paxman
You may consider this correspondence closed! Stephen Fry has agreed to step ‘into’ the breach in your place.
Yours &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
Michael Parkinson
ITV Studios
London
England
8 January 2001
Dear Mr Parkinson
As a blunt Northerner, you’ll appreciate my not ‘beating abaht tha’ bush’ and getting straight to the point. I like your interviews, Mr Parkinson. You’ve interviewed all the greats; you let your guests TALK, hang it all, rather than upstage them! Who can forget the time you had Rex Harrison on and he told an anecdote, some twenty minutes in length, about an adoring old lady pleading for his autograph at some Hollywood function, with him finally relenting and then her saying, ‘Oh, thank you so much! I’ve always been such a big fan of yours, MR NIVEN!’
How we roared – all the more a month later when you had on David Niven and he told a wonderful, lengthy story about being accosted by some elderly lady outside his club, who asked for his autograph. He finally gave it her and she said, ‘Oh, thank you so much! I’ve always been such a big fan of yours, MR HARRISON!’ I’m fond of telling both those stories to my staff. However often they hear them, they always laugh heartily.
Yours, indeed, was the golden age of television and I should like to be interviewed by you now that you have made a comeback. One ‘condition’, however: often, with your guests, you spring a surprise on them, asking them to do a tap-dancing routine with Sammy Davis Jr, or sing a duet with Miss Kate Bush. I can neither tap-dance nor hold a note. If you were to ask me to do any impromptu ‘turn’, I’m afraid I’d be forced to decline and your show would have to run to credits early, with ITV controllers having to slot in a ‘Potters’ Wheel’ interlude or public information film before the news bulletin.
Regretfully, yours
HRH The Prince of Wales
The Producers
Big Brother
Channel 4
Charlotte Street
London
England
15 May 2004
Dear Sirs
I must admit to being morbidly drawn to your television series, which does seem to have ‘struck’ a chord with the general public. It is important we connect, don’t you feel, which is why I’ve been mulling over the idea of a Royal Big Brother, with any monies raised going to a deserving cause such as the Gooseberry Preservation Society or the League for the Arrest of the Decline of the Lesser Kestrel.
I’d be game – I fancy my chances of going all the ‘way’. Of course, Mother would probably decline to be involved. Not sure Anne would be very keen either. As for my father – well, that’s out of the question, of course. The idea of him padding dozily to the latrine in the small hours amid the green glow of the night vision camera in just his combinations … Camilla is not, as yet, ‘family’ as such. So, that would leave myself, Andrew and Edward, perhaps an unfortunate combination – we might be inclined to bicker, unsupervised by the maternal eye.
I suppose we could have a Royal Big Brother with just members of my staff and me? I’m afraid there would be very little acrimony. My staff tend to be very supportive of absolutely everything I say and do, which is gratifying. Failing all this, perhaps we could recast the series altogether, instead making it a celebration of the ‘big brother’ as a family institution? As a ‘big brother’ myself, I feel we get rather a raw deal and with your clout, I’m sure we could turn that around. No need for a name change, that’s the great thing. Just change the contents, that’s all – the details, I leave with you.
Helpfully, yours
HRH The Prince of Wales
Richard and Judy
c/o Channel 4
Charlotte Street
London
England
12 March 2006
Dear Richard and Judy
I must congratulate you both on your career success. Judy, you must feel proud to be an inspiration to older women everywhere. In fact, looking at the pair of you together, I’m often reminded of Camilla and me. Yes, there is a disparity in age and in you, Richard, a certain eternal youthfulness, which some have observed in myself, but there is a bond between you, dammit!
I do catch your show on those occasions when I find myself idle. I trust you’ll take the intended compliment when I say that, when I do find myself watching you on TV, it spurs me on to do something. ‘There must be something I could be doing,’ I find myself saying, and I switch off the television set then go and bally well do it! I believe a great many people up and down the country feel the same way. In this respect, you perform a jolly important function.
Your admirer, and very occasional viewer
HRH The Prince of Wales
Fiona Bruce
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
15 May 2006
Dear Miss(?) Bruce
As one who remembers the news being presented on television by the likes of Robert Dougall and Peter Snow, may I say what a welcome fragrance you bring to our airwaves. It was bad enough in the old days hearing the news about strikes, plane crashes, three-day weeks, IRA atrocities and butter mountains in the Common Market without it being read out by fellows who looked like elderly bloodhounds confined to their kennels on a rainy day.
You bring something fresh and new and stimulating to our channels. I think it’s the eyebrows. Sometimes I find it hard to take in the stories you’re reading out – I’m simply watching your eyebrows levering up and down like drawbridges. How do you do that? You must come down to Highgrove and show me some time.
That was it, really – oh, and despite what you say on Crimewatch, do take care! We lost Jill Dando, we don’t want to lose you as well.
Respectfully, yours
HRH The Prince of Wales
The Editor
News of the World
News International
Wapping
London
England
8 November 2010
Dear Sir
I must admit that I am quite wobbly with alarm to read about this phone-tapping business that appears to be rife among those who find themselves thrust into the upper circles of public life. I mean to say, hang it all, I’ve had this sort of thing before you know, between myself and my wife, Mrs Parker Bowles and I must admit, the old capillaries boiled with shame when it all came out in the press.
On the one hand it really is, you know, an infringement of liberties – the civil ones that I daresay we all have ‘written down’ somewhere. On the other … well, in a way it would be nice to know one is being bugged. It shows one is important, that one has a vital, key role to play. Not being bugged – well, it suggests the opposite, really – that one’s words and thoughts are of no public interest whatsoever. Chastening thought.
So, here’s my question to you, fellow to fellow: am I being bugged? If so, what the devil do you think you’re doing? Or am I not being bugged? And if not, why not?
Yours &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
David Dimbleby
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
13 December 2010
Dear Mr Dimbleby
I plan to make a special appearance on the BBC to highlight awareness of my latest initiative, as set out in my recently published book, Harmony. I wish to expound my views on this important subject on the national channel. Of course, what with the impending Royal Wedding, I daresay there will be an appetite for tattle and prattle regarding the ceremony and so forth, and I suppose, on a quid quo pro basis, I can
provide a few choice ‘quotes’ to satisfy the national appetite for trivia, to ‘sugar the pill’ of the main business of the interview, which would be to provide spiritual uplift.
I would like the interview to be handled by a seasoned, BBC man, one who is steeped in the best traditions of the Corporation, a familiar voice in momentous times over the decades; one who has gravitas but is not considered ‘stuffy’, one in whom an openness to new ideas plus a healthy, inquisitorial scepticism are perfectly matched.
You have worked at the BBC for a long, long time. Who do you suggest? I was thinking Jeremy Paxman or perhaps the ‘up-and-coming’ Jeremy Vine. Or, there is Peter Sissons – still a BBC man? A shame Sir Robin Day is no longer with us, really.
Yours, in appreciation
HRH The Prince of Wales
Andrew Marr
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
28 May 2011
Dear Mr Marr
I heard a joke the other day: ‘What have Prince Charles and Andrew Marr got in common?’
The answer: ‘They’re both good listeners.’
Actually, written down like that, I’m not sure that’s how the joke went – I may have misremembered it. Anyway, that was merely a light-hearted introduction. The meat of my correspondence concerns these revelations about your private life. Clearly you’ve done something of some nature with somebody or other and funny thing is, I find myself absolutely riveted. I’m dying to know what it was that you did, who you did it with and all the whats, whys and wherefores appertaining to it. This thing, this thing you did – was it really so frightful that not only can you not mention it, but the highest law makers in the land decreed no one else must even mention that thing, or that there was ever any suggestion the thing happened in the first place, that the thing was ever a thing at all, so to speak? Least of all mention to whom it was done or whatever the thing was.
You’re torturing a fellow! Can’t you ‘spill the beans’ by return of correspondence, put me out of my misery? My imagination is running wild, I can tell you. I have seen things, you know – in the Navy, on shore leave in some of the former colonies. I’d hate to think your thing was any of those things.
Ravenously, yours
HRH The Prince of Wales
Andrew Marr
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
29 May 2011
‘They’re all ears!’ Yes, that was it … Now how about that unspeakable thing?
Yours, &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
Andrew Marr
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
3 June 2011
Dear Mr Marr
Due to some Post Office bungle, a letter I sent you on 28 May has been ‘Returned to Sender’. This must make the letter I sent you on 29 May, which I assume you did receive, read somewhat bizarrely. I’d explain the whole thing again but it’s perhaps best we observe some sort of ‘superinjunction’ between ourselves to prevent either of us mentioning this correspondence ever took place.
Yours &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
Rupert Murdoch
c/o News International
Wapping
London
11 July 2011
Dear Mr Murdoch,
Some months ago, I wrote to one of your editors, asking to know if I had been bugged. Since then, I, along with the rest of the country, would appear to have the answer to this, and a lot of other things besides.
I have gathered my thoughts on this subject, and they are as follows:
You bastards. You ruthless, sociopathic, invasive, utterly indecent, barely human bastards.
Of course, there is an ongoing inquiry into what you people have been up to. If it should turn out that you are entirely innocent, then I cheerfully withdraw in advance the suggestion that you are ruthless, sociopathic, invasive, utterly indecent, barely human bastards.
Yours &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
PS It may be that by the time this letter reaches its destination, News International has been ‘shut down’. In which case, could I ask the janitor, or whoever is looking after the building, to forward this address in the fullness of time to whichever address, or institution, Mr Murdoch is residing?
Parliamentarians: Matters of Great Concern
George Thomas
Secretary of State for Wales
House of Commons
London
England
6 August 1968
Dear Mr Thomas
I must say I’m terrifically excited about next year’s investiture, which I understand is to be screened on the television set. I hope I don’t go bright red with embarrassment! But I did read that not everyone’s happy about it – these people from the Free Wales Army, for instance. Actually, I can understand – if some young ‘Taffy’ came over to one of our castles and was crowned the Prince of England, I think I’d consider it a bit thick myself!
All the same, they do sound like a bunch of loonies. Gosh, I can’t repeat what my father said about them! I wonder if there’s anything we can do to prevent hordes of angry Welshmen in red face-paint charging in over the hills and disrupting the whole day? Perhaps we could hold the ceremony in England – at, say, Leeds Castle? Or maybe I could be declared ‘Prince of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales and The Isles of Wight and Man’ – bit of a mouthful, but then no one feels left out – except the Orkneys and Lundy whom I forget to put in, like a chump!
I want to do my best for the Welsh: they haven’t got much going for them apart from the singing, slate mines and rugger, and I was hoping my investiture would cheer them up a bit, make them feel they’re just as important as everyone else.
Charles (Prince of Wales Elect)
The Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries
House of Commons
London
England
16 August 1969
Dear Sir
I am writing to you regarding over-fishing in the Atlantic. Like many young people my age, I really am most concerned.
Like anyone else, I enjoy a spot of ‘fishing’ – to be alone with nature and a few staff is one of life’s great pleasures. However, when such fishing is undertaken commercially, a problem arises: the seas are rapidly emptying of these creatures, I am informed. There simply aren’t enough to go round. I’m terribly worried that at the current rate of consumption by the year 1980 (by which time I may well have ascended to the throne of England), the supply of fish will have given out entirely around these shores.
There must be something that can be done about this. I’m no politician, but a down-to-earth man interested in practical solutions. Perhaps the commercial fishermen could be issued with smaller nets? Or they could use larger nets but with bigger holes, so that more of the fish fall through them and escape? Or we could launch a national ‘Adopt A Haddock’ scheme, in which selected fish were named, tagged and their seafaring progress filmed in documentary form by squadrons of ‘Jacques Cousteau’-style frogmen and the results shown on television? The documentary treatment worked well for the Royal Family – people were far more disinclined to hunt us down and kill us once they’d seen us at first hand. Would it not be the same for the fish?
Charles (‘Defender of the Fish’)
Arthur Scargill
National Union of Mineworkers
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
England
20 June 1984
Dear Mr Scargill
Well, I’m afraid neither Mother nor my grandmother are especially fond of you at this moment and if they knew I was writing to you, they’d probably blow their tops – Grandmamma especially, who when your name is mentioned, is apt to resort to the language of the hunt. That’s why
I’m currently lying ‘doggo’ in my Palace study as I write this.
But hang it all, in a situation like this it behoves sensible men to put their heads together and see if a solution can be reached! I’m no politician but it does seem to me that your men have been treated in a high-handed manner and I have spoken about this to Mr Thatcher (Mrs Thatcher’s husband) in the hope that he can put in an influential word. That said, have you not asked yourself whether mining is really any sort of way for the human animal to spend his lifespan?
To put it in language you’ll understand, ‘there’s more than one way to make a muckle’. What I mean to say is, if the mines have to close, well, perhaps that’s a blessing for the environment – and what’s more, an opportunity for your members to explore more natural, spiritual forms of energy. I’m talking about chi, ley lines, healing crystals. If they were to decide to transfer to these areas, I myself could certainly provide small grants on a first-come, first-served basis to those of your men willing to wipe the soot from their eyes and see the world for what it is in the New Age.
Yours, in the spirit of Aquarius
HRH The Prince of Wales
The Minister for Architecture
House of Commons
London
England
16 January 1986
Dear Sir