Prince Charles turns 70, releases official family portrait and letter on the future of the countryside

Newsroom 14/11/2018 | 09:56

The Price of Wales has turned 70 today and the Royal family has released two official photographs to mark the occasion. The family will celebrate Charles’s 70th with a private evening party at Buckingham Palace.

Charles also wrote a letter reflecting on the future of the countryside. In the letter, published in Country Life magazine, he urged the public to look ahead in their own lives to “try to think ahead to what our grandchildren will want and need”.

“Even as we grow older, the countryside that is such a special part of our lives somehow manages to adapt to the march of time, changing with the generations as much as with the seasons (…) So perhaps this is a good moment to reflect on how rural areas have changed over the course of 70 years. What have we learnt in that time and what might the future hold?” the Prince writes.

His oldest son William, the Duke of Cambridge, also contributes, saying that he hopes to be able to tech his own three children about the natural world.

“As a relatively small island, I cannot see how our food production could ever compete within the world’s commodity markets,” the letter continues. “Perhaps, though, we could seek to establish the United Kingdom as the most environmentally-friendly food producer with a unique ‘brand image’, as an island offering the highest standards of quality and natural goodness?”