The Prince Charles Letters by David Stubbs

Author:David Stubbs
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845137373
Publisher: Aurum Press
Published: 2011-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

Yours, in assistance

HRH The Prince of Wales

Jeremy Paxman

c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation

Wood Lane

London

England

13 June 2000

Dear Mr Paxman

Reading between the lines, I rather get the impression that like me, you chafe to a large degree at the demeaning trivia of modern life. You yearn for some higher purpose suitable to your abilities and stature; you want to get past the endless round of daily headlines and those humdrum interviews you’re forced to conduct with shifty political functionaries and the like. You’re casting around for a serious role, a way of really ‘leaving your mark’.

Well, perhaps I can help. Following the success, a few years back, of It’s A Royal Knockout, I was thinking of setting up a similar event to be staged in my gardens at Highgrove – It’s A Royal University Challenge. I would head up a team of three from Trinity, my old college, while my brother Edward would lead up a team from Jesus. You would be quizmaster. I did give ‘first refusal’ to Bamber Gascoigne but he rather generously passed on the opportunity, saying you would be far more suitable for the task.

I’ve already got a team of local carpenters working on a facsimile of the University Challenge set. As on the television, there will be an upper and lower deck. I have ‘first dibs’ on the upper (I always preferred the top bunk bed at boarding school – fellows couldn’t drop things on to your face as you slept – spiders, worms, live rats) and the preference remains life-long. I’m having a stepladder installed on the side to help me get up and down – not so limber as I used to be!

I’ll leave you to set the questions. You know my specialities – van der Post, The Goons, horticulture, which I trust will be well represented. Quite honestly, I’m hoping to ‘wipe the floor’ with young Eddie! He doesn’t always afford to an older brother the respect that one deserves; he needs whittling down to size in a straight Battle of the Intellects. No favours, but all I urge is that with me, you don’t go in for any of that ‘C’mon, c’mon, hurry along now!’ stuff. It flusters me and I’d be liable to ‘dry up’, even when the answer’s on the tip of my ‘tongue’.

One of my staff will let you know which dates we have available.

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