The great passion PROJECTS

What does King Charles stand for and how will it affect the future of our country and our planet?

- MARIA COOLE

I’ve had this extraordinary feeling for years and years, ever since I can remember really, of wanting to heal and make things better,’ our new King told Time magazine in 2013. ‘I feel more than anything else it’s my duty to worry about everybody and their lives in this country, to try to find a way of improving things if I possibly can.’

While heir to the throne, King Charles worked tirelessly to create what is arguably his greatest legacy – his philanthropy.

‘Pa had always been a worker,’ says the Duke of Sussex in Spare, acknowledging his dad’s dedication. ‘His own work was also a kind of a religion because he was furiously trying to save the planet. He’d been fighting for decades to alert people to climate change, never flagging, despite being cruelly mocked by the press as a Chicken Licken.

‘Countless times, late at night, Willy and I would find him at his desk amid bulging blue postbags – his correspondence. More than once we discovered him, face on the desk, fast asleep. We’d shake his shoulders and up he’d bob, a piece of paper stuck to his forehead.’

As King, Charles will, like the Queen before him, remain politically neutral, so can he still promote the causes he is passionate about?

The green King