He arrived by helicopter, and I took him on a tour of the school. He visited every department and made each person he spoke to feel like the most interesting person in the world for the moment he engaged with him or her.  He was surprisingly impressive in the professional way he went through every department of the school, asking questions as if he really cared, making everyone feel special. He was unfailingly gallant and dignified, tolerating all the fawning sycophants with restraint and bonhomie. He came to our house on the campus, where a small party of important guests took drinks with him ( no photos were allowed of him drinking, according to protocol). Then he took a nap before changing into more formal gear for a celebratory dinner and speeches course.

He delivered an amusing collection of his memories of his old school, Gordonstoun. Most of the juvenile humour revolved around girls and the embarrassing joint dancing evenings arranged with a nearby girls’ school. I thought he acquitted himself pretty well. He carried out his formal duties so maturely and professionally for one so young. The proceedings over, his entourage hustled him off to the Royal train to return to Balmoral, the Scottish castle where his mother spent much of her time and sadly died last week.

A few years later when I met the Queen at an event for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, she too was very formal, constrained, and professional. But she seemed uninterested when I told how well her son had done during his visit to Carmel. However, she came alive when I told her I had seen her racehorse win at Ascot. Yet she has had an incredible reign and held her family and the realm together for so many years and through so many family and national crises precisely because she understood her role and the constraints, as well as the privileges.

Prince Charles went on to struggle with the demands of royalty and his desire to take up and advocate for causes that appealed to him. Inevitably he got into trouble with whichever sector of society, or the press disagreed with him. Whether it was a preference for traditional architecture, advocating for organic farming, or indeed expressing a view that he would like to be identified with all religions in his realm, not just the Church of England. I felt sorry for him, having to be a symbol rather than a normal human being.

The failure of his fairy tale marriage brought the hounds of the press down on him. Princess Diana’s carefully choreographed demolition of him, left him wounded and discredited for many years. And the Queen herself suffered the lowest point in her popularity for seeming too unemotional and rigid. Such is the cost of royalty and the press’s lust for scandal. When his long-standing affair with Camilla became public, they were both regarded as home breakers.  And for a while, the Queen was seen as emotionally distant and out of touch with the new generation. It took a long time for both Charles and Camilla and their obvious devotion to each other, behaving with restraint and dignity before they were able to regain public approval.

Conventional wisdom was that Charles might abdicate in favour of his son rather than succeed to the throne. In recent years his reputation has recovered.  Both Charles and the Queen have carried on, despite repeated examples of other members of the Royal Family letting the institution down.  

Charles’s refusal to be drawn into the scandals of others has won him respect. The dignity of his broadcast speech to the nation on his mother’s death, his commitment to serve as she did and the way he has thrown himself right away into filling the huge gap she left,  have won the hearts of many who previously enjoyed deriding him.

By nature, I am not a monarchist. Though I do not know what system is better. A symbolic, constitutional monarchy, rather than a divine one is close in many respects to the biblical model of a monarch subject to laws and constraints. It offers tradition, dignity, and a sense of pride in one’s heritage. And I do not know what system is better. Most presidents have been and are disappointing, if not criminal. And  I do not doubt that Charles 3^rd will prove to be a far better monarch than his critics have assumed.

But to be personal again. Despite his youth, at the time when he came to Carmel ( and I was only a few years older myself), there was something unique in his sense of mission and Noblesse Oblige. So I presume to show you some photos taken at the time. They are dated of course as was my hirsute appearance which was fashionable at the time. But it is my little bit of history as I celebrate my 80^th birthday.