The Prince Charles Letters (4 page)

Yours, constructively

HRH The Prince of Wales

Phil Collins

Virgin Records UK

London

England

16 October 1981

Dear Mr Collins

I wonder if you could settle a bet between my father and me? I insist the words to your song are, ‘I can feel it coming in the air tonight’. He contends the last bit goes ‘Coming in the heir tonight’. Which of us is right? He is being rather ‘leery’ about it and it’s upsetting my wife.

Yours, urgently

HRH The Prince of Wales

‘Prince’

Paisley Park Studios

Minneapolis

United States of America

4 April 1987

Dear ‘Prince’

As you are no doubt aware, 1987 marks the 35th anniversary of my mother’s accession to the British throne. To mark the occasion, I struck on the idea of a pop concert to take place at Buckingham Palace – but a concert with a difference. My wheeze was to give the thing a royal ‘theme’, as reflected in the selection of artists.

And so, with the help of one of my staff (and no help, I should add, from my wife, who mistrusts my instincts in these matters –
I’ll
show her!), I came up with a shortlist. It comprises:

Prince (yourself)

Princess (the singer of ‘Say I’m Your Number One’ by the songwriting firm of Stock Aitken Waterman)

Queen

King (you know their disc, ‘Love And Pride’, I take it?)

What I thought was that we might arrange the sequence of turns according to Royal hierarchy. However, my staff have already ‘put out feelers’ to Princess, whose people have expressed misgivings about her appearing bottom of the bill. Apparently, it’s considered ‘demeaning’ in showbiz ‘circles’. So, I wondered if you would open instead? My governess taught me that a little gentleman should always accede to a lady’s wishes (not that I’m saying you are little).

So, what I thought is that you could kick things off with a half-hour set commencing about 8.15pm British time, followed by Princess, with Queen penultimately taking the stage and finally, and fittingly, King topping the bill. If that sounds amenable, do please have your people contact mine. No fee – all monies to The Prince’s Trust – but lashings of tea and unlimited Battenberg cake.

Yours

HRH (The actual) Prince of Wales

Sinéad O’Connor

Chrysalis Records

London

England

12 February 1990

Dear Miss O’Connor

Before congratulating you on your latest hit single, one thing I must first establish – your hair, or rather lack of it. This is not due to some illness I have not been made aware of? I thought I’d ask straight off so as not to ‘put my foot in it’.

Anyway, I must say, this song of yours, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ – I happened to catch it on the television set and was most struck by your performance to camera. You have the knack of making a fellow who had no part in whatever it was that caused your unhappiness to nonetheless feel a bit of a ‘heel’. I wanted to ask, though – are those tears real, or do you simply have the ability to ‘turn on the waterworks’ at will? Is that something you ladies can do? It would be most useful to know, the next time my own wife’s eyes turn moist after some little contretemps so I can satisfy myself that she is in fact ‘putting it on’.

Incidentally, I find myself in the curious situation of being ‘in’ with the group Status Quo. If you wish, I could arrange for you to support them on one of their upcoming tours – it would be great exposure for an ‘up and coming’ artist.

Yours, in assistance

HRH The Prince of Wales

Liam Gallagher

Oasis

Manchester

England

16 August 1996

Dear Mr Gallagher

Actually, even as I write, I’m not quite sure if you’re the Gallagher brother I wish to be addressing. I would check with a member of my staff, but they’re already much too hard pressed with other important work to be distracted by frivolities such as this. If you are the wrong brother, I’m sure you’ll get wind during the course of this letter and be good enough to pass it on to the brother I am clearly talking to. One hesitates to talk of monkeys and organ grinders … Well, you know my meaning.

I’d like to extend my warmest felicitations on your fine compositions, ‘Wonderwall’ and the one with ‘Champagne’ in the title. I don’t suppose you necessarily relish the Royal seal of approval (as a dedicated punk rocker, you’d probably spit in my face or something!), which is why I’m corresponding from a safe distance.

The reason I congratulate you is this. It has in the past been the complaint of many a father and, indeed, husband, on being made to sit through
Top of the Pops
that firstly, what they play isn’t music, it’s just noise, and secondly, that you can’t tell the girls from the boys. My father, Prince Philip, made the same complaint when looking in on Anne and me watching the same programme in the 1960s and I found myself repeating the same complaint in the 1980s. However, here we are in the 1990s. I watch you and I can tell it’s just good old-fashioned music, like the good old days. And I can very much tell who are the boys and who are the girls: you’re all boys. This, I feel, is progress and you should be proud of yourselves. Keep it up!

Yours, pleasingly unconfused

HRH The Prince of Wales

The Spice Girls

c/o Virgin Records

London

England

3 November 1997

Dear Spice Girls

I must admit, in the heat of our encounter I was rather flustered and didn’t quite catch which of you was which, though ‘Ginger Spice’ was unmistakable! I’m writing to commend you for really putting Britain on the map – it’s a long time since Britannia was considered ‘cool’ and I expect I’m in some way to blame for that, though I strive daily to attain that condition of tepidity so oddly valued by today’s young people. (What do you think it is about me – the kilts, the concern?)

And now, a delicate matter: amid the cameras and jostling I was all too keenly aware of kisses being planted on my cheeks and even of my hindquarters being pinched (by Ginger and, I believe, Black Spice? I’m sorry – I’m not au fait with your ‘soubriquets’). All of this was of course most improper, if somewhat flattering, and I certainly felt anything but cool in the midst of it all, particularly under the collar!

But my serious point is this: certain sweet nothings, I recall, were whispered in my ear. If they were meant in earnest, I must at once nip in the bud any cherished hopes on the part of any of you ladies, lovely as you are, of a liaison. Had I been many years younger, my late Uncle Dickie might have encouraged me to ‘horse around’ with the lovely likes of yourselves prior to any serious betrothal but I am an older man, with a serious role to play in the administration of our Kingdom, and cannot afford to have that undermined by an ill-judged choice of bride. Spirituality and Gravitas, not Sporty, not Baby, must be my watchwords.

Yours respectfully, but alas, also distantly

HRH The Prince of Wales (Now Spoken For)

Liam Gallagher

Oasis

Manchester

England

6 January 1998

Dear Mr Gallagher

You know, having caught a ‘five-star’ review in a magazine called
Q
, which one of my staff left lying around, I decided to give your latest long-playing disc a play. I must confess, even to my conservative ears it sounded as if you were rather ‘playing it safe’.

Have you ever listened to the group Status Quo? Even though their recordings essentially sound the same, they have a knack of making each new disc ever so slightly different from the last. Could you not, perhaps, take a leaf out of their book?

Yours, constructively

HRH The Prince of Wales

Robbie Williams

c/o EMI Records

London

England

6 January 2003

Dear Mr Williams

I’m looking to really ‘pep up’ my latest Prince’s Trust line-up. In the past, I’ve had Phil Collins (who is always game and I suppose I shall keep him on), but who nowadays reminds of some faithful but elderly beater struggling to keep up, thrashing weakly through the grass long after the grouse have rocketed.

What I’m looking for is some ‘fresh meat’ or ‘blood’. I need a younger act, who in their original use of beat rhythms and lyrics makes the young feel invigorated and refreshed, reminds us that we live in challenging, but optimistic times and that tomorrow belongs to our youth. In other words, someone who really fires us up the way The Beatles once did, once upon a time.

It’s a shame there’s no one around like that presently, don’t you feel? But the search goes on – meanwhile, until I track down such a ‘turn’, I wonder if you yourself would care to be on ‘stand-by’?

Yours, and so forth

HRH The Prince of Wales

Sir Elton John

c/o Watford Football Club

London

England

12 January 2006

Dear Sir Elton

Congratulations on your betrothal or should I say ‘partnership’. I must admit, it was quite a personal shock when it came out several years ago that you were a homosexual after songs like ‘Crocodile Rock’ and ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ and albums such as
Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy
, but I am quite accepting of it all now. Of course, I have nothing within reason against homosexuals. Many of my grandmother’s staff, although not similarly persuaded did know, or know of, many men who were. I know your people have been through very difficult times in recent years despite the remarkable, almost excessive cheerfulness you collectively maintain.

Just a matter of protocol: this upcoming event at Highgrove to which you and your ‘plus one’ are cordially invited, how should you be announced? I was thinking, ‘Your Royal Highness, Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr and Mr Elton John’. Is that right? It is important to get these things correct, I feel.

Yours, in acceptance

HRH The Prince of Wales

Madonna/Celine Dion

c/o MTV

Los Angeles

California

United States of America

20 April 2008

Dear Misses Madonna/Dion

I trust you don’t mind my addressing you jointly: it seemed more practical and would convey that I am speaking to the both of you with one voice, not addressing either of you as I wouldn’t the other. This concerns a recent report by an ancestry ‘website’ that both you, Ms Ciccone and you, Ms Dion, may well be related to me via my wife, the Duchess of Cornwall. It seems there is a common, though distant lineage dating back to one Zacharie Cloutier, a French carpenter who settled in Canada in the seventeenth century.

Now, as you read the article through, it’s clear the ancestral connection is so bally tenuous as to be barely worth mentioning. Obviously the authors are bent on ‘mischief-making’ against the Royal Family. Some might say I should simply ignore this sort of thing but I’m convinced it’s all part of a ‘drip, drip, drip’ process that threatens to erode the Monarchy and really must be nipped in the bud, if our institutions are to be preserved.

To this end, I’ve drafted an open letter to the media, to which I hope you will both attach your names at the bottom so that we can once and for all scotch this nonsense:

We, the undersigned, wish to make clear any link between ourselves and the Royal Family is both spurious and tenuous. Headlines in which our names are bracketed with that of His Royal Highness The Prince Charles, whose tenacity and vision for Britain we both greatly admire, are thoroughly frivolous and threaten to undermine the good work he does for his many good causes, such as Young British Enterprise and freer access to holistic medical treatment.

We are pop stars (and perfectly alright if you like that sort of thing) but hang it all, we’re not Royalty and we never will be.

If you wish to make minor alterations, by all means run them by my staff but if I hear nothing from you in the next twenty-four hours, I’ll give it the ‘go-ahead’ as written.
Qui tacet consentire
, as my Latin master used to say.

Yours, expectantly

HRH The Prince of Wales

Dave Lee Travis

c/o Radio 1

The British Broadcasting Corporation

London

England

1 June 2008

Dear Mr Travis

I write to you because I need advice from a younger disc jockey and your name sprang to mind.

I was looking to book Britney Houston for one of my Prince’s Trust concerts. However, when I raised this with my sons, both of them shook their heads and left the room. Is she no longer ‘in’? I thought she was quite popular.

Yours, in puzzlement

HRH The Prince of Wales

‘Bono’

c/o U2 HQ

Amsterdam

Holland

16 July 2008

Dear ‘Bono’

I’m sending this to Holland – I understand that is where you have relocated for business purposes. I’ve had a flash of inspiration and thought I would dash it off on paper before some high-handed Palace official talks me out of it.

I admire the bluntness of your colleague Mr Bob Geldof, who, like you, wishes to ‘Make Poverty History’. The message to the ‘masses’ is a plain and simple one: Give us your money. Words are not enough – action is needed and that is the action required.

Here’s what I envisage – a philanthropic gathering of myself (Prince Charles), yourself (Bono), Richard Branson and Bill Gates. We pose for a photo, to be published in the form of a poster to be stuck up all over Britain and beyond. It shows us standing shoulder to shoulder, staring the onlooker squarely in the eye, with our hands outstretched and imploring. And above us, in bold typeface, the words, ‘GIVE US YOUR MONEY’. And beneath us, the words, ‘WE NEED IT NOW!’.

It’s that simple. No waffle, and no reams of gobble-de-gook about Third World this and that, just the basic message in a nutshell. I’ll have my people compare diaries with yours first thing in the morning.

Yours

‘Charlo’ (I’m joking, of course) HRH The Prince of Wales

Lady Gaga

c/o Universal Music

Los Angeles

California

United States of America