Charles ‘shy man, embarrassed by his jug ears, weak chin’

Press, 12 October 1979, Page 6

Charles ‘shy man, embarrassed by his jug ears, weak chin’

NZPA-Reuter London Prince Charles is probably ! the most misunderstood of all heirs to the British Throne, according to the first full-scale biography of the future king published this week. “Whatever the efforts; made on his behalf, his! people will always regard! him as a swashbuckling.: hard-living extrovert Prince rather than the kindly, hesitant. very vulnerable man he really is," says his biographer, Anthony Holden. Holden spent some time travelling with the Prince as a reporter for the London “Sunday Times.” "The popular imagination will always picture, him astride a polo oony. where he in fact spends very little of

his time, rather than toiling at his desk, where he spends’; a very great deal.” The book, “Charles. Prince of Wales” (published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson),; chronicles the Prince’s life from the days when his father spanked him for sticking his tongue out at the crowds outside Buckingham Palance to the latest! speculation on when and! whom he will marry. It throws no new light on; his sex life, despite thinly! sourced innuendoes about the Prince’s detectives com-; plaining, of long waits outside private houses in various London suburbs. Also on the romantic side, the book goes in detail over the old stories - of the Prince’s romantic entangle-

ments with Lady Jane Welllesley, Lady Sarah Spencer, Davina Sheffield, and others, and what appears to have been the Queen’s frustrated wish that he should marry the Roman Catholic Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg. Such a marriage would have raised problems because the Prince is forbidden ; by the Act of Settlement of 1701 to marry a Catholic. Either the act would have to be changed or Princess Marie-Astrid would have to renounce her faith for the [marriage to be possible. The book throws new light on the private personality of Prince Charles, revealing him as a diffident, self-conscious. .vulnerable, and well-meaning man: a bachelor still living with

I his parents in his thirties, (embarrassed about his jug ears and weak chin. Holden says of the Prince: "He “hates. yet shares, the obsession of the British press ;and people about whom he ■will marry: he talks to : friends these days of little else." 1 Prince Charles, his bio:grapher says, expects the .deference due to his office, ! takes its pomp and circumstance very seriously, enjoys : the archaic rituals of royal ; ceremonial. He insists that his girlfriends call him “sir," even tn private, says Holden. . . “He ■is (more intelligent than moat of his predecessors, ■’which only makes him more ebnfused about his destiilv.” Holden says. “He is often oored and more often lonely."