14 November, 2024

Sean Coughlan Royal Correspondent Welcome to Royal Watch - it’s feeling very autumnal here in London. At this time of year, it is always poignant to watch as the King leads the Remembrance Sunday commemorations at the Cenotaph. He was joined by Prince William and Catherine, but Queen Camilla, who is still building up her strength after a chest infection, stayed away.  ‌ Meanwhile, Charles is celebrating his 76th birthday today. Find out below how he's spending it. Plus, as Buckingham Palace opens its famous front gates to visitors, we’ll look at how its role for the Royal Family is changing.

Charles’s birthday outings It’s an insight into the King’s sense of public service that he’s spending his birthday today promoting a food bank project. He’s been to a warehouse in south London that supports people facing food poverty.

The Deptford project aims to make better use of food that would otherwise be thrown away. Credit: PA Wire There was some glamour too, though, as the King attended the movie premiere of Gladiator II last night. Queen Camilla had to miss it. She did, however, return to duties at the Booker Prize for literature, saying: “I think I’m on the mend, but these things always take a bit of time.”

The Queen met authors shortlisted for the prize at Clarence House. Credit: Reuters The King also hosted a TV and film industry reception yesterday and the military band outside Buckingham Palace played a movie-related medley, including James Bond themes. Maybe the King could be 00-76… Over the years, it’s become something of a fun tradition for this band to play appropriate music, like a ceremonial juke box. King champions food poverty project on working birthday

Living history As Big Ben rang out over London’s Whitehall, the nation observed the two-minute silence on Remembrance Sunday. ‌ Catherine, the Princess of Wales, was watching the ceremony in the capital from the Foreign Office balcony. It was one of the biggest events she has attended since completing her chemotherapy.

The Remembrance events are being seen as another milestone in Catherine’s return to public life. Credit: Getty The King led the laying of wreaths, before 10,000 veterans marched past the Cenotaph war memorial. The D-Day contingent only had six surviving veterans, with a collective 595 years between them. Next year will see the 80th anniversaries of the end of the World War Two in Europe and in East Asia. For any of the big commemorations after that, the number of surviving veterans will be even smaller. We’re watching living memories slipping away into history.

Nation falls silent as King leads Remembrance ceremony

Your Royal Watch We asked you last week whether you thought royal finances needed to be more transparent, after a Channel 4 documentary raised questions about the commercial incomes of the King and the Prince of Wales through the royal estates.  ‌ “The role of members of the Royal family is akin to that of public servants. Hence there should be full transparency about royal finances,” said Kris in the UK. Marija in Lithuania said it was important to recognise that royal ownership of estates was part of “tradition and history”, rather than looking at the debate in solely financial terms. ‌ “What do they do with all the money they already have now?” asked Nancy in California, in the US. Jenny from New Zealand said it was “amazing how the talk of royal finances is always about how much is taken out by the royals and never mentions how much the royal estates add to the government’s revenue". ‌ This week, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned after a report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church of England. King Charles, as monarch, is the Church’s supreme governor. What do you think of the link between the monarchy and the Church of England? ‌ Thanks also for all your photos of the royals. Do keep them coming - we’ll be featuring them in future editions. Get in touch at royalwatch@bbc.co.uk. Please remember to include your name and the country you’re writing from.

Palace or public gallery? Buckingham Palace is going to be open to paying visitors for even more of the year in 2025, with guided tours of the East Wing to run from mid-January to late May. ‌ The regular summer opening of the palace, costing £32 per adult, runs from July to late September. So gradually you can see that the palace will open up to visitors for more of the year than it’s closed. That’s happening alongside the ongoing £369m ($469m), 10-year taxpayer-funded restoration project.

Visitors were able to see the famous royal balcony from inside Buckingham Palace earlier this year. Credit: Getty And for the first time, visitors to the East Wing, who pay £90 each, will be able to enter through the front gates and crunch across the pink gravel in the courtyard, below the famous balcony. ‌ The palace will still be used for official occasions, like state visits, receptions and garden parties, but it seems to be inexorably transforming into a gallery and visitor attraction, rather than anywhere that’s going to be a lived-in private residence.

First peek at room behind Buckingham Palace's famous balcony

A piece of royal history Fifty years ago this month, a referendum in Greece confirmed by a large majority that the country wanted to be a republic rather than a monarchy, after the collapse of its military dictatorship. The country's last king, Constantine II, went into exile, spending many years in London.  ‌ Here you can see him and his wife Anne Marie speaking to the then-Prince Charles at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1970, four years before the referendum.

Credit: Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Constantine went on to become godfather to Prince William, before finally returning to live in Greece, where he died in January 2023. To hear the story of how the Greek people rejected the monarchy, listen to the Witness History podcast.  How Greece got rid of their king