King Charles and his gardening staff

silverlining48

He was 30 when he married teenage Diana and believe Camilla was already married at the time .
If he as a 30 year old mature man was pressured then surely he doesn’t come across well.

You forget that only a decade before his birth, we had a King whose sex life was such a disgrace he abdicated. The replacement King was so shy and unprepared he struggled to do the job.

So from the moment Elizabeth produced a male heir, there was huge pressure to make the next King an improvement on the two previous Kings. His entire youth was a rigourous training excercise devised by Prince Philip and Philip's uncle, Mountbatten.

By 30, the order was ". There will be no repetition of the Wallis Simpson scenario; you won't marry a woman with a known sexual history. Your duty is to marry this inexperienced teenage virgin and breed sons."

Charles and Diana only met a dozen times before the wedding.

Think he was 32 actually.

He was born in 1948, married in 1981.

You are right calendar girl, he was 32, mature with plenty of girlfriends over the years.
So more than capable of making up his own mind about a wife and if he wasn’t, he should have been.

Casdon

escaped

Anniebach

Quote Allsorts Wed 30-Jul-25 06:29:01
He aloe are to be deeply dating but not to his staff. When no one is left and the gardens not pristine he will have to start to wake up. Perhaps move to an apartment without a huge garden. No excuse for not treating people with respect.

The King bought Highgrove in 1980, it has taken until 2025
for a gardener to complain , only 45 years

I thought the property was actually bought by The Duchy of Cornwall, and that Charles was the lifetime tenant?

It’s more complicated, I was reading about it the other week, the garden is managed separately to the house, which I can understand the reason for, because the king wants it preserved for posterity. I’ve been too, a couple of years ago, and it is not just lovely, but interesting, particularly the stumpery.
www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/king-charles-aide-of-21-years-explains-why-prince-william-will-snub-a-key-duty-he-s-got-his/ar-AA1HUkNm?apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1

Thanks. Yes, there's a stumpery near here at Rosemoor Gardens, I love the shapes and it's always cool on a hot day.

silverlining48
He was 30 when he married teenage Diana and believe Camilla was already married at the time .
If he as a 30 year old mature man was pressured then surely he doesn’t come across well.

Diana was 20 when she married, both accepted an arranged marriage, Charles had dated Sarah Spencer, broke the relationship of when she spoke to the press.
Ghastly Burrell said how Diana came to Balmoral for
a weekend , with just a small suitcase and didn’t know what to expect etc, he forgot to mention her sister Jane and husband
had house at Balmoral and Diana had mixed with the royal
family from childhood

If he as a 30 year old mature man was pressured then surely he doesn’t come across well.

silverlining
And you may be unaware that this was a Prince brought up to do his duty for the country, whatever his personal feelings.

The marriage was an arranged one, unusual in this country but not unusual in Royal circles and in other countries. The two Grandmothers certainly helped with the arrangement.
Perhaps he'd given up trying t find a suitable bride, Diana saw it as a prestigious match and so the arrangement came about.

Yes, Anniebach, some of what Burrell wrote was a load of rubbish.

She had just had her 20 birthday just a couple of weeks before. When the wedding plans were made she was 19 to his 32.
He had had relationships with many women including her sister. Personally I would have run a mile but she appeared to love him.

Diana lived in Sandringham , was very friendly with Andrew and Edward, in her book she said of Andrew “he was always playing games, I knew he wasn’t for me”

Allira why would you think I may not be aware of his upbringing. I am as aware as everyone else and yes I knew about the grandmothers’ involvement, surely everyone did.

My point is he was a mature man and to allow himself to be pushed reluctantly into marriage with a young virgin, if that’s what she was, is no credit to him.

I am sure he is not a bad man, but he was a weak man.

Doing his duty, as I said.
Shut your eyes and think of England!!

I'm sure Diana knew exactly what the score was, too.
She wasn't a fragile flower, she was a girl who had taken on the role of carer and comforter of her little brother at age 6 when her parents' marriage broke down. She was stronger than people thought and well used to the Royal Family.

They both tried but it didn't work out.

As a retired child protection social worker my view is that she was young and probably damaged psychologically when her mother left the family home, leaving her with her father who became involved with another woman. She was older so it wouldn’t be unusual for her to look out for her 6 year old brother.
Distressing experiences like this do not usually make young people strong, on the contrary they suffer from attachment and other psychological problems.

And quite possibly she was a “pleaser for daddy” , she should have been born a boy, her parents marriage ends, what a prize
to give daddy, marriage to Prince of Wales, she was angry when her father remarried, spoke of how she pushed her step mother
down staircase. A very troubled person

The staircase incident came to mind as well, Anniebsch.

To be fair, I felt sorry for both Charles and Diana.

I am sure he is not a bad man, but he was a weak man

Perhaps, but Charles has been surrounded by strong women all his life.

Just think about it. His mother, his grandmother the QM, his sister Anne, Diana, (young, immature in many ways, but pretty tough) and now Camilla.

But I think he has become a much stronger character as he has aged, not such a pushover.

Well, I have it on good authority that he was a good Naval officer, popular and a good leader.

A fine leader filled with humanity, humour and a keen sense of duty.
That’s the verdict of sailors who served with the King during his five action-packed years in the Royal Navy.

Anniebach

I doubt he decides on wages

According to a report in the Sunday Times, the King’s Foundation, which is responsible for running Charles’s world-famous gardens at Highgrove, has seen staff turnover resulting in 11 out of 12 gardeners, including two head gardeners, exiting the position since 2022.

He looks like a frog and I never forgave him for cheating on the lovely Princess Di with that other creature.

I hope he has to do his own gardening! He can catch some tasty mosquitoes while he's out there.

No problem with Diana’s cheating with her many affairs ?
those poor wives

How long had they been there, I wonder. So many folks who call themselves gardeners these days are really only grounds maintenance staff - not the same thing at all.
He is well known as a gardener, so might be a perfectionist.

It may be that he had a long term staff who retired, and the turnover is as a result of trying to create a new team of committed gardeners.

Allira

Well, I have it on good authority that he was a good Naval officer, popular and a good leader.

A fine leader filled with humanity, humour and a keen sense of duty.
^That’s the verdict of sailors who served with the King during his five action-packed years in the Royal Navy.^

Unlike his brother Andrew who, when he was in the navy, was cordially disliked as arrogant and ignorant.

We had friends who served in the navy when Prince Andrew was a naval officer.

M0nica

Allira

Well, I have it on good authority that he was a good Naval officer, popular and a good leader.

A fine leader filled with humanity, humour and a keen sense of duty.
^That’s the verdict of sailors who served with the King during his five action-packed years in the Royal Navy.^

Unlike his brother Andrew who, when he was in the navy, was cordially disliked as arrogant and ignorant.

We had friends who served in the navy when Prince Andrew was a naval officer.

Yes, so have we!! They would concur.