Thousands Flock To See Prince Charles

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 13

Thousands Flock To See Prince Charles

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

CARMARTHEN, July 4. When Prince Charles arrived in the heartland of Welsh nationalism yesterday, he received another tumultuous teen-age welcome, rivalling the deafening days of wildest Beatlemania, the Associated Press reports.

Many thousands of people, including 4000 schoolchildren gathered in Carmarthen Park to see the new Prince of Wales on the second day of his tour of his principality. Having signed the city’s roll of honour, the Prince entered the amphitheatre of din in a jeep, grinning and waving until schoolchildren

swept in their hundreds towards the vehicle, screaming with excitement and straining to touch his hand. The Prince then showed signs of apprehension, and uniformed police streamed in to rescue him and restore order.

The warmth of the reception was all the more surprising because Carmarthen has elected the only Welsh Nationalist member of Parliament, Mr Gwynfor Evans, who was not there to greet the Prince; nor had he been at the investiture in Caernarvon Castle two days before. Earlier, the gay young Prince had made an historic appearance in St David’s Cathedral, the major shrine of Wales. There he became the first member of the Royal Family to take part in a service in Welsh inside the twelfth-cen-tury cathedral.

St David’s is Britain’s smallest city. It has a population of only 2000, but is ranked as a city because it has a cathedral, and this is the nation’s principal shrine because it contains the bones of the patron saint of Wales, St David. A few minutes before the Prince entered the cathedral to join 850 people in the sing-

ing of the hymn “We Worship Thee, AH Our Fathers," a Welsh extremist tried/ to cause havoc involving the Royal party by making a false alarm call to the St David’s fire station, timed to send the fire-engine out on to the main street just as the Prince’s party was coming down the road. But the bid failed because telephone calls to the fire brigade had been diverted to another station.

In spite of the great welcome Wales is giving to their new Prince, the bomb scares continue.

In Llanelly yesterday, patrolling policemen found two dummy bombs, one in the grounds of Kidwelly Castle and the other at the Inland Revenue office.