2023-11-11 16:16:45
by Enrica Roddolo
Charles III turns 75 and is on the cover of the «Big Issue». Dymond, Royal BBC editor at the Courier: «he is redefining the monarchy as relevant for our times. And now he can even laugh at himself.”
No crown, instead an office jacket, in black and white. On the cover of the homeless newspaper, «Big Issue». King Charles III has definitely come down from his pedestal for his 75th birthday: no throne, no Regalia, and the newspaper’s showcase for those who live despite themselves on the margins of society. The newspaper for which every year in the summer his son William takes on the role of newspaper seller on the streets of London to shine a spotlight on the plight of the homeless.
«Big Issue» which will be released on Monday in London will officially announce King Charles’ great food recovery plan with 200 million meals redistributed in the community, the Coronation Food Project (anticipated by the Corriere in September), which will involve charities such as the Felix Project and will have directed by Baroness Casey and Dame Martina Milburn.
A shot, a portrait of Charles, entrusted to the photographer John Waddell Rankin – the same one who had portrayed Queen Elizabeth for her 75th birthday – but who decidedly changed tone for the king. No Buckingham Palace as a set for the portrait, and an image which, as Ruddell explains, aims to convey “Charles’ steel fibre”.
A king who will celebrate his 75th birthday with his peers at Highgrove and Dumfries House, before the family dinner, and who in fact is in his longest apprenticeship as Prince of Wales, and in this first year of reign between the internal economic crisis and two wars ( first Ukraine then the conflict in the Middle East) and the war in the family after the exit of his younger son Harry with Meghan, has actually demonstrated all its solidity. He is steely like his beloved grandmother, the Queen Mum, to whom it is no coincidence that he was always very close. And she is famous for that joke by photographer Cecil Beaton who defined her as “a marshmallow forged with a welding machine”.
One year on the Windsor throne, what kind of sovereign is King Charles III turning out to be? “The king? He is a thinker who is redefining the role of monarchy. A king who has probably exceeded expectations”, Jonny Dymond, signature and Royal editor of the BBC, tells the Corriere from London.
And how do we explain the success of the first year of the king who has collected a heavy, demanding inheritance: that of the most beloved queen, Elizabeth II?
«Partly because Carlo has been underestimated for so long. The fact is that the many challenges of his personal life, his search for a role as Prince of Wales, have cast a long shadow on him, on his abilities. And partly also because the Crown itself – the position inherited upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II – brings with it a sort of legitimacy and gravitas that was previously thought to be lacking in the new king.”
The times of Elizabeth II, of a post-war period launched towards the future and those of 2023 hunted by the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East with the sword of Damocles of climate change on the future of the planet, are very different. Is gravitas enough to explain the king’s success?
«This is not enough to explain the fact that Carlo did better than expected: Carlo brought something new to the role of sovereign: he is a thinker, he is someone who cares deeply about some of the biggest themes of our time, for example how different faiths, different people can coexist together, but also how can we preserve the environment, how can people face the same problems in a time of acute polarization.”
A king who, due to his aggressive interference in many government issues, in his long period as Prince of Wales with his point of view entrusted to those who were nicknamed “black spider memos”, the messages of the black spider for his handwriting, raised fears of an overly interventionist king. How did Charles III really behave in this first year on the throne?
«King Charles III did this by avoiding entering an area of political controversy but at the same time the king is redefining the monarchy as something relevant for our decidedly complex times. And – with the support of his wife Queen Camilla – he has softened a bit. Now he is able to laugh at himself even with self-deprecating comments. Yes it was a good year for the new king.”
November 11, 2023 (modified November 11, 2023 | 4.33pm)
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