The Royals with Roya and Kate - Crowns and Chrysanthemums

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

We have a new monarchy - the King of the Compost and the Queen of the Bees as Charles and Camilla were re-named by the child gardeners at the ‘No Adults Allowed Garden’ at the Chelsea Flower Show. The visit comes as King Charles became the patron of the Royal Horticultural Society as his mother was for some seventy years. In a show recorded before the UK election announcement, Roya and Kate discuss flowers, weddings, garden parties and how the other members of the wider royal family might take up the slack in performing the more regular 'ribbon cutting' duties and how would these things be done without the royals? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day or binging TV shows all night. Save up to $20 per month on Rogers internet. Visit rogers.com for details. We got you. Rogers. You look thoughtful, Kate. I was just thinking.

She's always dangerous for a podcast. What would the Chelsea Flower Show be without the Royals? What would life be without the Royals? Gosh,, well we're the Royal Editors of the Times and Sunday Times. Life would be pretty, uh, how can I put it? Dull? Quiet. Welcome to the Royals with Roya and Kate. Roya Nikar of The Sunday Times. And Kate Mancy of The Times. So, two stories struck us this week.

First, the annual Chelsea Flower Show in the Leafy Gardens, the grounds of the Royal Hospital. And it was a beautiful day. And I was in the city, the City of London, for the launch of the Princess of Wales' report on early childhood. And sadly, the princess was not there in person, of course, but her presence was certainly felt. But we start in Chelsea, the royal borough of Kenston and Chelsea, and there were a great number of gardens for health charities, the Stroke Association's Garden for Recovery, which I actually loved, and others

looking closely at the environment, Planet Good Earth, etc. And the King and Queen hopping merrily between them. so it was nice to see charles and camilla out and about yeah on such a sunny day they had good good weather for it as well i didn't know which helped in in their green hinterland which is where i think the king is always at his happiest yeah i think it sort of speaks to all his kind of ecological you know ambitions and thoughts for the planet but to lower the tone onto a more kind of ecological, you know, ambitions and thoughts for the planet. But to lower the tone onto a more kind of... Let's lower the tone, Kate. Let's lower the tone straight away.

Straight away. Because my favourite part of the engagement was Camilla saying that she'd watched the first episode of the first series of Bridgerton, the racy bodice ripper Netflix drama. We were saying last week we hoped that she'd... We thought she'd probably watched Love Island in the way that The King didn't know who Maya Jama was. It was quite fun to hear her.

I'd like her to do a, she's got her reading room, I'd like Camilla to do a TV list. A TV guide by Queen Camilla would be good because she looked around the Bridgerton Garden, didn't she? And she's a keen gardener, so this sort of speaks to everything that they are, that they love, that they love to do in their spare time. And it's those engagements, I think, that kind of really come alive.

It's a bit like when Kate and William do kind of sporty things, which they love. It's where they're kind of happiest. You see them at their most relaxed. And you hear them. So you hear Charles and Camilla quite often talk, because they're quite competitive gardeners. She says they're very competitive about their fruit and veg with each other. You hear and see them going around the chelsea flower show and he will

point out certain plants that he knows or he finds hard to grow and she'll see things that she likes and she's tried to grow and it just sort of makes it all feel a bit less formal i think in a way that when the late queen used to go around chelsea you know you didn't really you she she was fascinated but you didn't hear her talking about how she would sort of stick her gardening gloves on and you know root out her petunias whereas with these two the king and queen you do we had the matchmobile do you remember that when the queen made her final trip to chelsea flower show yeah um scooted around yeah she had a palace chauffeur sort of driving her around in the kind of majesty mobile so she could still see it because she's she went to nearly every chelsea flower show of her reign which is quite extraordinary really shows how much she loved it she did love a plant we know that charles loves a plant and

loves talking to them and whenever you see him plant a tree as well he always kind of shake it shake his hand so he grabs the grabs the trunk and gives it a little shake and wishes it well he says it's to wish it luck. Yeah. I liked the bit as well where, of course, naturally, for maximum publicity for Highgrove and the Highgrove shop, there were the King and Queen suddenly making an appearance at the Highgrove stand. And I liked that bit where she was presented with these two wicker basket interpretations

of her two rescue Jack Russells, Beth and Bluebell. And you could hear her saying, oh, I know just the spot for them. And Charles sort of looked around at the things that he knows what's in the Highgrove shop because he lives at Highgrove. But there is a new... He's plugging his own merch. At Chelsea, wasn't he?

He was giving his... He was giving his royal, I suppose, approval to the merch at Highgrove. But, hot off the press, Kate, there are some bottle wars going on in the royal households. Oh, yes. Because I currently at home have a bottle of Buckingham Palace gin, which I bought when I went to go and look at one of the Royal Collection summer openings a couple of years ago. I haven't finished it yet. It's still there.

But Charles the King has produced a very small batch of pink rhubarb gin at Highgrove because there's only apparently a very small batch of rhubarb at Highgrove and it's only produced 300 bottles. I have one of the, I've got my little mitts on one of these bottles. And so I think it's going to take some serious investigative journalism by you and I. I'm happy to take part. To find out which bottle is best.

Well, the late queen loved a Dubonnet in gin, didn't she? Royal gin wars. I like a tonic, gin and tonic. Come on over and let's do some proper hardcore journalism to find out which tastes best. Happy to. And I noticed that also in attendance with the Royal Party at Chelsea was the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester,

Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, and other friends and relatives, including Queen Camilla's daughter, Laura Lopez, and Camilla's sister, Annabelle Elliot. So a bit of a family affair. Of course, this has been a week when those who are friendly with the Royal Family have themselves been caught up in the family drama a little bit,

in particular the rift with the brothers William and Harry. Yes, and you seem to be the source of some key news on the subject, Roya, of who is going to attend and not attend the wedding of one of the country's richest men, the Duke of Westminster, and he's due to marry Olivia Henson in what promises to be a rather grand and lovely ceremony at Chester Cathedral next month. Well, yes. So last week, I did a story that William was going to be an usher at Hugh Grosvenor's wedding. Now, Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster, is one of those very rare creatures where he's an incredibly close friend of both William and Harry. And despite the rift of the brothers, has sort of maintained very strong links with both. And in December, I broke the story that he, you know,

we knew he was getting married to Olivia Henson. He had decided that it would be too tricky to have Harry and Meghan at the wedding, as well as William, and at that point... Orcs. Orcs, exactly, orcs. And so they weren't going to be on the guest list. And that was a very big deal at the time, because I also revealed in that story that Hugh

is godfather to both Prince George and Prince Archie. So he's that close to the both of them. He's the only friend of theirs to be godparent to both two of their children. So I think, you know, for it then to emerge that William is an usher and he'll be supporting Hugh, but Harry and Meghan won't be there. Hugh is very low-key, the Duke of Westminster. He's not a fan of publicity. He wants to keep this wedding low-key and private. They've put a press notice in there.

They have. Well, I suppose they're acknowledging that there'll be some sort of press interest come what may. But I think there's no doubt that all eyes will be on who's not at that wedding as well as who is at that wedding. And I suppose when I discovered last year that Harry and Meghan weren't going to be going and the reasons behind that, it really puts into, I think, quite stark reality how isolated I think sometimes Harry and Meghan will now be in these,

you know, when these events arise where there are, you know, great friends and royal family members invited, that just it will be too awkward for them to attend. But if you have to pick sides as well, you're going to go with the future king, presumably. It promises to be a pretty good bash. I mean, he's got about 10 billion fortune, hasn't he? Yes.

Old Hugh. I think the entertainment will be good. When he had his 21st birthday party in 2012, it was quite good entertainment. It was a bit more than a sort of magician and squeezy balloons. He had Rizzle Kicks. Nice. And Michael McIntyre, the comedian.

Oh, okay. So William will be there as an usher, but, of course, Princess of Wales, not likely to attend. No. Because she's still recovering. Not likely to attend because she's still obviously receiving her cancer treatment. um yeah so i think william will probably be the only member of the royal family there that the king's not expected to go either even though he's godfather to the duke of westminster because it's the day after he and william and the queen will be in france

for dd events and that's a busy week isn't it very busy week yeah the wedding is the kind of end the book end of that week yeah so i think william will be flying solo without kate meanwhile across london kate well indeed there was reference to her this week even though we know that she's no longer or she's not doing public duties at the moment because this week a report produced by the royal foundation of the prince and princess of on behalf of the business task force for early Childhood. That's a mouthful. Jinx. Making very clear recommendations of the provision of education and support for the under fives to bring economic benefits to Britain. A task force that included staff from Iceland, the frozen food shop, Lego, the building blocks, Aviva, finance, the co-op, lots of things,

Ikea, building furniture and Deloitte, the money people. And the report is called Prioritising Early Childhood for a Happier, Healthier Society, produced, as I said, by this childhood centre. And Kate has said before how much she believes positive protective factors in the early years can play a critical role in shaping our futures too. And she wasn't there. they said that she was excited she was a driving force they said behind it and she's read the report she's

been briefed on its contents so she is involved but the palace were very keen to point out repeatedly this does not mean that she's returned to public duty she's not yet back at work but nevertheless I thought it was a really interesting time to do it because we all showed up to the press briefing you know we never really know what you're going to expect we knew there was this report that was going to come out so it was interesting to hear a bit about that kind of background they're saying it's not a health update about the princess but the work that she's been doing that she set up last year is really interesting I think because it's 45.5 billion pounds that they this report says they hope UK can save or you know recoup by helping under five so nought to five year olds and as a as a parent of little kids i think it's really important

that she's doing this work i mean some people think it's quite worthy it's got a nebulous kind of estimated figures but actually when you drill down there's been some really kind of serious kind of financial analysis that's been done because the royals see this all the time don't know they last year i was with kate when she went to a prison in surrey and looked at what happens when things go wrong in early childhood you know these are people who end up in prison consequences long-term consequences drug addiction mental health problems life of crime and it must be so frustrating I always think for the royal family they go around they see these problems in society and they think how do we stop it and rather than at the tail end obviously helping people at that tail end

with mental health problems, people rehabilitating themselves after prison or after having a terrible time in life, how do you stop that happening in the first place? So this project, I think, is really crucial. And I know I'm quite cynical about a lot of these projects. Cynical, Kate. I won't have it said. I am, but I think this one is really important

because it's helping kids right at the start of their lives and also the people you know like muggins here who care for them and you know if it's hard for me as a working parent with a decent job supportive partner what is it like for people who don't have that and that's what this is looking at and i think it's i think good on her i think it's really important work and also she I feel with the Princess of Wales that she's been very clear about making this a big part of her manifesto in terms of her public work in the way that you know William I think would like to be defined by his work in terms of homewards in terms of earth shot and mental health. This is her kind of, you know, her passion project.

It's what she wants to, you know, become known for, established in. I've spoken to lots of experts who've worked with her, who are like, she, I mean, she's more knowledgeable than some sort of leading people in the sector because she's read so much around it. She's spoken to so many people about it. She digs in under the surface. And so when she comes back from her treatment and you know comes back into public duties i'm sure that this will be

a very public part and focal part of her work um and you know it goes i hear what you're saying about some people have gone well what does it actually mean it's all a bit nebulous but actually i think for her she sees it as a very long-term project too and it was described as her life's work wasn't it by an aide but she sees it it's for her it's her climate change it's her climate change equivalent isn't it yeah it is and I think it's brilliant it stops it's the kind of if you imagine someone explained it to me like you know if you're taking a train from Scotland to to London and it stops at every station it's how can can you stop, how can you halt someone's life from going down the wrong path, you know, at those station stops to try to rehabilitate

somebody or help somebody along the way so they don't get to that end position. And of course, it's a huge cost to society for people who've had, you know, disrupted childhoods, essentially. Important work. Yeah. So important work. Yeah. So I think we're actually very positive about that one. Yes. Good. No cynicism at all. No.

Right, Kate, should I read you some feedback that we received this week after the second episode? Only if it's good. It is good. Good. It's from a big cheese. Yes. I'm not going to reveal who this big cheese is. Very wise.

But it's big cheese. Okay. And this big cheese said, in a message to me, thoroughly enjoyed the second podcast, less music, more chat, excellent. There we go. Less fanfares, more chat. It's the future.

Looking at the producer and the editor in the room. Kate, I want to go back to your thought about what the role is of the royals in the life of the room. Kate, I want to go back to your thought about what the role is of the royals in the life of the country, away from the big events and the set showpieces. So, I was looking at some of the appointments in the royal calendar this week, and here we go. Drum roll.

The Princess Royal will visit Norway. The Duke of Gloucester will visit the Young Men's Christian Association in Newcastle. The Duchess of Edinburgh will visit Capability Scotland. The Princessester will visit the Young Men's Christian Association in Newcastle. Good on him. The Duchess of Edinburgh will visit Capability Scotland. The Princess Royal will visit the Hornet Services Sailing Club on the occasion of its 60th anniversary. And she'll open the Army Offshore Sailing Centre in Gosport, Hampshire. A lot of sailing.

The Duke of Gloucester, as patron of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, will attend the Gilbert and Sullivan Society Convention at Grimsdyke Hotel. I'm sure it's not as grim as it sounds at Old Reading in Harrow Weald. And then he'll be opening the dental facility at the University of Suffolk. And then he'll visit the Suffolk County Show in Trinity Park, Ipswich. The firm never sleeps. So the ribbon cutting continues, in a way. So much ribbon cutting. And I think it's very interesting to kind of look at how integral the bread and butter ribbon cutting plaque unveiling is to the institution and actually what the public expects of them. Because William has very famously let it be known that he doesn't see himself as he doesn't want to be a ribbon cutter. But the public, they're all for, I think, the new initiatives and, you know, homelessness

and mental health and early years, but they also want to see our royal family, who the public pay for, do a certain amount of ribbon cutting. I think it's the bread and butter. And I think Charles knows that because when they had the patronage review, he took on 300 new patronages, knowing that...

That's a lot of ribbon cutting well for most of them he's just going to be a kind of you know letterhead isn't he but it helps the charity draw in money and I think they know that that's what they have to do and although I know William likes to do the kind of impactful stuff you know do different projects and work in a different way he has been opening quite a few things recently I mean I was I was in Birmingham and he was opening this new kind of youth centre thing. So I think there is this acknowledgement still within the firm that they can't move too fast away from that

because like you say, that's what the public expect. But are there enough members of the royal family to go around? Because at yesterday's garden party with William, obviously the Princess of Wales was not there, but we saw a big turnout from those non-working members of the royal family. Oh, the cousins. You know, bolstering, you know, William as he hosted that garden party.

A lot of people from his charities there. It was raining. It was miserable. But we had Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie. We had Zara. Mike. And Mike. Tyndall.

Tyndall. Peter Phillips. Peter Phillips. Peter Phillips there. I mean, it was... Did he have a plus one though? Because that's what we're all talking about as well, isn't it? Or who's his latest girlfriend? It was interesting, wasn't it?

And it's not the first time we've seen Eugenie and Beatrice at garden parties supporting other members of the royal family. They've been there before. They've done that before. But I thought it was quite interesting because there's been quite a lot of discussion with, you know, when the king was out of action, with the Princess of Wales not doing public duties,

now the king is back and he's back roaring. There was a lot of discussion about whether other minor royals who were not officially on the payroll, they don't receive sovereign grant funding, whether they should be, you know, brought out to do, to fill in. I've always thought that I'm not sure there is public appetite

to see more minor royals, non-working members of the royal family back on the payroll. Now, yesterday was different because it was just, you know, William's cousins there to support him and help him out and sort of spread the load and go out and talk to people and look very jolly. But I wonder whether that's a sort of litmus test by the palace to see what the public reaction is. And would we then start seeing Beatrice and Eugenie back on the sovereign grant, you know, on the sovereign grant list to receive, you know, money to go off and do official engagements and I suppose for me looking at

yesterday if you were in California and you had been told very clearly at the Sandringham summit that there was no half in half out arrangement for you and you're either in the royal families working or you're out might you look at that and think hmm one rule for them another one for us well I think so I think I I've always thought that Princess Beatrice in particular is a really good ambassador for both the family and the country actually and I've met her and I think she's smart um I think she's really switched on I think she's often got a bad press that is not deserved and I think there definitely is a role for for her she's often got a bad press that is not deserved. And I think there definitely is a role for her.

I don't know Eugenie quite so well, but I think definitely for Beatrice, there could definitely be some sort of role in which she could have a kind of half in, half out arrangement. I don't think that would have to be funded necessarily. We know the Duke of York, her father, does get money from the king's private funds to help fund his lifestyle so you know surely some of that will be support would be helpful to her and then if he's not working so if Beatrice can pay back or Eugenie can pay back in

some way that's helpful as well I mean Eugenie's interesting she's close to Harry isn't she I know that she's she appeared in that kind of Netflix programme briefly. And it's interesting to see because they are still on the ground. That brilliant list that you read out is great. It shows you what's been done by the royal family around the country and shows you what the royals are for, which is what we mentioned at the top of the show, that they are the glue, you know,

and that link between kind of society, government, history, everything that sort of makes us British in a way. But all the people on the list are getting much older. Yeah. And the future's looking pretty thin because George is only 10 and that next generation still have quite a few years until they can take part or will take part in those official duties. So do you think we will start to see more of the Tyndalls,

more of Bitches Than Usually, Peter Phillips? Do you think we'll start to see them at official engagements more? Just say it again. Peter Phillips. I'm not sure. It depends if he's going to, you know, promote his milk products in China or whatever. Now, Kate, this is a problem though. This is a niche.

Not everyone will know what you're referring to. Okay, remind our listeners what you're referring to in terms of Chinese milk and Peter Phillips. Peter Phillips. Peter Phillips got in a bit of hot bother. Hot milk. A few years ago because he took some money to promote a Chinese advertising campaign to promote

milk to Chinese people. And he was very much branded as the Queen's grandson, wasn't he? He was branded as the Queen's grandson. So you're not supposed to use your kind of royal connections for commercial gain or anything like that, or bring the kind of royal family into any kind of commercial situation like that. And that was very key to why harry and megan weren't able to to seal the deal that they wanted in terms of being commercial but also doing um being officially officially royal so exactly so how does that work with zara and mike who obviously earn their own money lots of sponsorship contracts indeed that's that's the conundrum that's the question and then if they're seen at the garden parties with william or in some sort of official capacity it's more tricky and doesn't seem fair to harry who was told no you can't do that i mean i'd be really interested to know what

the public think about it so if you've got any thoughts let us know do you want to see more of beatrice more of usually more of peter phillips speaking of the younger royals and george charlotte and louis kind of coming up the ranks it does seem like william is referencing them more on jobs now so at the garden party he talked about george um being a potential future pilot planes specify. He said he was a potential pilot in the making. And he would love to visit this flight base that he was talking to somebody about. And he was handed a book by somebody from one of William's homelessness charities. And he said, oh, I'll read that to Louis at bedtime. Interesting. Which I thought was interesting because obviously William was introduced to the whole concept of homelessness and charities which help prevent homelessness by his late mother, Princess Diana.

And he's really, really keen to kind of instill that in his own children. Yes. When we did the interview last year with William, he talked about, I asked him about exactly what you've just said. You were introduced to homelessness by your mother. You were taken to Centrepoint in the passage as very young children, him and Harry. And I said, you know, have you, he talked in the past publicly about speaking to Charlotte

and Louis and George about homelessness when they saw homeless people on the street, they would ask, you know, what's that? And he would explain. And I sort of said, how are you, you know, how are you thinking about introducing them to it on a more sort of involved way you know would are you taking them along to secret you know private visits yet and he said not yet but I am thinking really

carefully about when is the right time to do that and he said you know when they're a little bit more established um and it was before they moved to the new school that's the time when I want to start doing that and he said they will very much be involved in in the work and that was a big headline for us actually so it's very interesting to hear you say you know that he'll read a book about homelessness to louis who's very young still yeah um but it's clear it's very important to him that that generational thing that passed down from diana to him which is so important he you know he passes down to his own children and they and they and they had that interest and i think for him he feels as he's always said my mother was keen to show me a life outside the palace walls

yeah take me to the homelessness charities and he's doing the same thing he's doing the same thing with his children i wonder if it's conscious though that every a lot of the engagements we we see him on now he is quite confident when it comes to talking about his children whereas there was this element for a long time it was quite private. Fiercely protected. You know, occasionally they'd say something like, you know, Louis likes eating fairy cakes or something and everyone would go, oh my gosh, that's really interesting. But now it seems every time he's out, he does reference that.

I wonder if it's a conscious, with this kind of slimmed-down monarchy, when you're drafting in non-working cousins to help bolster up kind of public engagement. Wanting to make the public feel a bit closer to them. Yeah. And also this idea that, you know, as the Queen did so well, this idea that, you know, it's not just me. There is a chain. There is a kind of, you know, generation after generation trying to present this idea of this stability stretching forwards and backwards. stretching forwards and backwards.

Which has always been done so successfully, most of the time, visually with, you know, those set piece portraits that we used to have of, you know, the late Queen, Charles, William, George, mixing in the tuppence and the Christmas pudding. Yes. But now I think maybe William feels

there's another way of doing it. And he's still, you know, we still have those, you know, big set piece portraits sometimes, but there's a way of doing it just in conversation and then passing comments to members of the public, which get picked up by us in our coverage.

Yeah. And it brings the public closer to the idea of what's coming next. This is the idea that it is the royal family, right? That we, you know, people can see that and relate to it. The ship sails on. You know, we'll put in their own children to bed and, you know, it speaks to what

Kate was doing as well about, you know, early childhood, reading to children. You know, they're on brand, those two, aren't they, Prince and Princess of Wales?

They're on message. They are on their own message. Hmm. And so next week, Kate, we go to the other extreme and we're going to look at the big protocol conventions that go with

major anniversaries such as the 80th anniversary of D-Day. And major state visits. We have the Emperor of Japan arriving in June. And then and this almost deserves a royal fanfare Royal Ascot. Yes. And all with the help

of Hugo Vickers writer and broadcaster and protocol expert who has written books about the Queen Mother, Greta Garbo, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And apparently he's got his own moat. Fantastic. We'll have to ask him about that. Sounds very royal. Very nice.

Anyway, it's time to go, Kate. Okay. Bye, Roya. Bye, Kate. Brilliant. Well done. Well done. Is that all right? Yeah. Brilliant, well done Is that alright?